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COMMEMORATION 



CONQUEST OF NEW NETHERLAND, 



TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY. 



^EW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



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NEW YORK: 
PUBLISH Kl) BY THE SOCIETY. 

M DCCC LXIV. 



C. A. ALVoJlli, I'KINTKB. 






COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS 

FOR 

THE COMMEMORATION. 

1864. 



GULIAN C. VERPLANCK, 
GEORGE BANCROFT, 
HAMILTON FISH, 
JAMES W. BEEKIMAN, 
EVERT A. DUYCKINCK, 
FREDERIC PE PEYSTER, 
AUGUSTUS SCHELL, 
GEORGE FOLSOM, 
CHARLES P. KIRKLAND, 
ANDREW WARNER, 
GEORGE H. MOORE. 



eP7^ ,2^^ 







OR AT I (3N 



CONQUEST OF NEW NETHERLAND, 



riEI.IVERED BEF(jnE THE 



NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 



On Wednesday, the Twelfth of October, 1864. 



JOHN ROMEYN BRODHEAD. 



NEAV YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY THK SOCIETY. 

JI DC'CC LXIV. 



At a Meeting of the New York Historical Socictj-, lield at the Hall of the 
Union, Cooper Institute, on Wednesday Evening, October 12th, 1864, to com- 
memorate the Two Hnndredth Anniversary of the Conquest of New Nether- 
land, 

" GvLiAN C. Verplanck, LL.D., submitted the following Resolution, which 
was seconded by George Bakcroft, LL.D., and adopted unanimously: 

" Resolved, That the thanks of tliis Society are eminently due and are hereby 
tendered to Joint Romeyn Brodhead, LL.D., for his eloquent Oration, delivered 
this evening, in commemoration of the Conquest of New Netherland, and that a 
copy be requested for the Archives of the Society, and for publication." 

Extract from the Minutes : 

ANDREW WARNER, 

Recording Secretary. 



Knterert ncporiling to Act of ('on^rt'SS, iu thi^ y<*ar 18(U. by 

JoiiN Romeyn Brophead, 

In tlic Clerk's Offlcu of the Dietriet Court of the United St.ites for the Southern District 

of New York. 



COMMEMORATIVE ORATION. 



Brothers of the New Yojik Histokkal Society : 

Two hundred years ago, an Englisli squadron, iilled 
with armed men, came up our Bay, and anchored near 
what is now our Battery. Its presence foreboded and 
produced resiilts of momentous interest to our city, our 
State, and our nation. You liave directed tJiat tlie anni- 
versary of this event should be fitly observed ; and, in 
obedience to your call, I venture to review the circum- 
stances and consider tlie consequences of the transaction 
Avhich we are this day assembled to commemorate. 

In the summer of the year sixteen hundred and sixty- 
four, the eastern coast of North America Avas occupied by 
various separate Colonies, whicli had been founded by 
several European nations. For nearly half a century, 
England, France, and the United Netherlands liad each 
been endeavoring to appropriate territory there, and rear 
dependent Plantations. France, the pioneer in successful 
colonization, liad tirst pushed her adventurous way 
through the valley of the Saint Lawrence, and set up tlie 
cross of her faitli with the lilies of her king, among tlie 
savages who dwelt on its borders. Thus began her do- 
minion over NeAV France, or Canada and Acadia. Farther 
south, England had kept closer to the sea-coast, the clear 
waters of which abounded with lisli, and where safe har- 



8 COMMKMOnATIVE RATI OX. 

bors invited the emigrant to linger neai* those crystal 
waves which covild roll unhroken to Land's End. Yet 
England had not occupied the whole of that more southern 
coast. Midway between Virginia and New England, colo- 
nists from Holland, following their countrymen who had 
exploited the unknown wild, planted themselves quietly 
among the natives from Avhom they bought the soil, and 
sought to add a New Netherland to the Batavian 
R('j)ublic.* 

All these various colonies Avere settled under the author- 
ity of the respective countries in Europe whence they 
came. In the earlier period of adventure, those countries 
had adopted the pinciple that the savage territories which 
each might discover should become the absolute property 
of the explorer. As Columbus had discovered the New 
Woi'ld — which ought to have borne his illustrious name 
— in the service of Spain, Pope Alexander the Sixth 
decreed that the Spanish sovereign should hold forever 
nearly the whole of that vast region which the Atlan- 
tic washed on the west.f A few years afterwards, the 
Cabots, under commissions from Henry the Seventh of 
England, discovered Newfoundland, and sailed, at a 
distance along the coast, as far south as Albemarle Sound. 
By virtue of these discoveries, the successors of Henry 
claimed- sovereignty over all that part of the North Ameri- 
can continent along the shores of which the Cabots had 
sailed.:): But, as the previous sweeping title of Spain 

* Tacitus describes tlie Batavians, who dwelt at the mouths of the Rhine, as 
"the bravest" of all the Germanic tribes — '' I'irhite pr<rcipvi Batiwi ;" Dc Mor. Ger., 
'iO. Tliese Batavians were the forel'atliers of the founders of that Republic, the 
early history of which Mr. Motley has so worthily written. I use the word "Bata- 
vian" as synonymous with "Dutch." In its proper English sense the term 
" Dutch" is exclusively applied to the people of Holland, or tlie Netherlands, or 
T.ow Limds. It is a common l)lnnder to call the people of Germany " Dutchmen," 
instead of " Germans," which is tlieir correct national name iu English. 

t Chalmers's Political Annals, (i, 10; Hazard's Collections, I. 3-6; In'ing's Colum- 
bus, I. 18,5-200; Holmes's Annals, I, 7, .5.511; Brodhead's History of New York, I. 2. 

: Ch.ilmcrs, 4, 8,9; Bancroft, I. 10-14; Brodhead, I. 3; Palfrey's New Eng- 
land, I. 62. IK, 



COMMEMOHA I'l VE OUA TION. 9 

cut oft' ail}!' English claim, Queen Elizabeth declared that 
'■'• 'prescripiloii without jjossessioii is of no anail ;'''' or, 
in other words, that actual occupation must follow dis- 
covery, iu order to confer a valid right to savage terri- 
tory.* This princi])le, whicli echoed the old Roman 
law, was first asserted by the Queen of England in 1580, 
because it Avas convenient for her to assert it against 
Spain ; and it was deliberately conlirmed by Parliament 
in 1621. t It established a most important rule in regard 
to European colonization iu America. 

Accordingly, France, with the cjuiet assent of Sjiain 
and England, ex])lored the Saint Lawrence and occupied 
Canada and Acadia. A Florentine mariner in her service 
had, as early as 1524, discovered the Bay of New York, 
and praised its lake-like beauty. But as the voyage of 
Verazzano did not lead to colonization, France claimed no 
title to these regions which he had visited. Neither did 
the explorations of Gomez, in the following year, induce 
the Spaniards to occupy our coast. J 

* Tlic doctrine maintained Ijy Queen Elizabetli was, ^^ Fnescrlpiio sine paixeisionc 
hand valent ;^'' Camden, Annales Eliz., 1.^80 ( Kd. Hearne), 3(K); Brodliead I. 4, note. 
The translation of Camden in Kcnnett's England, II. 4S1 (Lond., ITOU), renders 
the passage as follows : " Moreover, she understood not why her or any other Prince's 
subjects should be debarred from the Indiex, which she could not persuade herself 
the Spaniard had any just title to by the Bishop of lioim^s Donation (in whom she 
acknowledji'ed no Prerogative, much less authority, in sucli caics, so as to lay any 
tie upon Princes which owed him no obedience or observance, or, as it wei*e, to 
infeotfe the Spaniard in that New World, and invest him witii the possession thereof), 
nor yet by any other claim than as they had touched here and there upon the 
coasts, built cottages, and given names to a River or a Cape ; which things cannot 
entitle them to a Propriety. So that this donation of that which is another man's, 
■which is of no validity iu law, and this imaginary propriety, cannot hinder other 
princes from trading into those counti'ies, and, without bi-eacli of the Law of Na- 
tions, from transporting colonies into those parts thereof where the Spaniards in- 
habit not, forasmuch as Prescription ■nithout Possession is little worth." This 
very sound doctrine annihilates the English claim by " Prescription," derived from 
the voyages of the Cabotjs, who, unlike the Spaniards, do not appear to have 
"touched here and there upon the coasts, built cottages, and given names to a 
River or a Cape; which things cannot entitle them to a Projiriety." 

t Commons' Debates, I. iiO, 2.51; Chalmers, fi; Grotius, II. 2; Brodhead, I. 143; 
New York Colonial Documents, IX. 20.5, .378, 913. 

t Holmes, I. M, .5(5; Bancroft, I. 17, 38; Brodhead, I. 2, 3; Palfrey, I. (ii, G.5; New 
York Historical Societv's Collections, (II.) I. 37-07. 

2' 



10 C'flMiiEiioiiATivE Oration. 

In tlie reign of Elizabeth, tlie lirst English colonists 
were sent to Virginia. But the adventure failed ; and the 
name which Raleigh gave to the savage lands he had 
attempted to occupy alone survived. A feAv j'ears after- 
Avards, the enterprising English mariners, Gosnold, Pring, 
and Weymouth, visited the rivers of Maine, and explored 
the coast as far south as Buzzard' s Bay. No P^uropean emi- 
grants, however, came to take possession of one acre of the 
Avild territory between Acadia and Virginia. To promote 
such occupation, by which alone, according to the English 
rule, a valid title could be secured, King James the First, 
in April, 16(J0, granted to two diiierent comj^anies the 
privilege of j)lanting and governing two distinct and sepa- 
rate colonies in that part of North America lying between 
the thirty-fourth and the forty-fifth degrees of latitude, 
or between Cape Fear and Acadia, not "actually pos- 
sessed by any Christian prince or people." Two English 
settlements were accordingly begun in the following year. 
The first of these, within the Chesapeake Bay, became the 
prosperous colony of Virginia. The second, at the mouth 
of the Sagadahoc, or Kennebec, Avas abandoned in 1608. 
But no attempt was made to occupy any part of the inter- 
mediate region, nor had any English mariner yet searched 
the shore between Buzzard's Bay and the Chesapeake.* 

In this situation of affairs, another Englishman, Henry 
Hudson, t sailing from Amsterdam in the service of the 
Dutch East India Company, explored, in the autumn of 
1609, "The Great River of the Moutsttaunts," the 

* Hazard, I. 50-58; Smith's Virginia ; Pinkerton, XHI. 211; Brodhead, I. .5-15. 

+ It is a vulgar error to substitute "Hendriek" Hudson for "Henry" Hudson. 
De Laot probably originated it, by writing, in Dntcli, Hendrielv for Henry, in liis 
" New World," eap. VII. p. S.% Ed. 16i5. Van der Donck does the same, although 
he speaks of Hudson as an Englishman. Lambreehtsen names him eorrcetly. 
Purchas of eourse calls liim "Henry;" see N. Y. Historical Society's Collections, I. 
61, 81, 103, 14(5, 173. Mr. H. C. Mnrpliy, in his recent interesting monogi-ajjli on 
Hudson, p. 30, gives a copy of tlie contract of the 8th of Jaiiuaiy, IBOit, to which 
the name signed is "Henrt Hidson." 



Commemorative Oration. 11 

mouth of which Verazzano had discovered and Gomez had 
revisited nearly a century before. This memorable event 
was duly commemorated by our predecessors and asso- 
ciates fifty-live years ago, wlien the Reverend Doctor 
Miller delivered the first anniversary discourse before the 
New York Historical Society.* The track of the yacht 
Half-Moon Avas soon followed by emigrants from Hol- 
land ; and, in 1613, Dutch trading establishments were 
fonned at Manhattan, and at the present city of Albany. 
The islands, coasts, and rivers between Sandy Hook and 
Buzzard's Bay were now for the first time explored by 
Adriaen Block, wlio sailed in the "Restless," or "Un- 
rest," through Hell-Gate ; and other Holland mariners 
pushed their examinations eastward, as far as Acadia. 
In October, 1614, the General Government of the Dutch 
Republic granted a Charter to the owners of the vessels 
wliich had thus been employed in American adventure, 
authorizing them exclusively for three years from January, 
1615, to visit the " neAvly discovered lands" tliey had 
explored between New France and Virginia, extend- 
ing from the fortieth to the forty-fifth degree of latitude, 
which region was now formally named " Neav Nether- 
land, "f 

The title which Holland thus acquired to New Nether- 
land — as far east, at any rate, as Buzzard's Bay — was as 
just and valid as any of which the history of the world 
contains a record. According to the English rule, it un- 
doubtedly belonged to the Dutch. Unquestionable dis- 
covery had been followed by the actiial occupation of 

* See New York Historical Society's Collections, 1. 17-60. 

t See Appendix, Note A; N. T. Colonial Documents, I. 10, 11; Brodlicad, I. 
2.5-65. Another vulgar error whicli must be noticed, is the absurd use of the term 
" Ihc New Net/ie)-la7nlx," instead of " New Netherlanu." In this respect, tlic transla- 
tions of Lambrechtsen,Van dcr Donek, De Vries, and De Laet, in N. T. Hist. See. 
Coll. (II.) I. 79, 129, 250, 291, arc gratuitously fiiulty. The origiual Dutch in every 
ease is "Nieuw Nederlandt," and not " de Nieuw Nederlanden.'" Even Smith, in 
his History of New York, I. 5, gives the name correctly, as "Nova Belgia, or New 
Nethcrland." 



12 COMMEMnKATfYE OraTION. 

savage tenitory by a Cliristiaii people.* Still farther to 
maintain tlieir rights, the Dntch Government, in June, 
1621, aftoi' the ex])ii-ation of the original NeAV Netherlanrl 
( 'liarter, incorporated a West India Company, Avith power 
to eolonizc and govern the "fruitfid and unsettled" re- 
gions in Africa and America which it niiglit occupj'.f 

Under tliis charter NeAV Netherland grew into a Prov- 
ince, invested by the States-General witli the arms of a 
Count, and deriving its laws, its habits, and its religion 
from its Batavian Fatlierland. Manliattan Island was 
honestly purcliased from the aborigines, and made tlie 
emporium of the fur-trade, which produced the chief pro- 
vincial revenue. Fort Amsterdam was buiU on its south- 
ern point, as a refuge in case of an attaclv by tlie savages. 
Posts were also established at Fort Orange, now Albany, 
on the North River ; at Fort Nassau, near Pliiladelphia, 
on the South, or Behuvare ; and at Good Hope, now Hart- 
ford, on the Fresh, or Connecticut. Agricultui'al colonies, 
subordinate to the general Provincial Government, were 
likewise settled, under Patroons, at several points on the 
North and South Rivers. + 

Six years after the Dutch Federal Government had fixed 
the name of New Netherland on the map of the world. 
King James the First, adopting the term originally jiro- 
posed by John Smith, sealed a patent in November, 1020, 
for the colonization of "New England in America." In 
tliis he included all the territory between tlie fortietli and 
the forty-eighth degrees of latitude, and from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific. But the patent candidly provided that no 
territory was intended to be granted which was "actually 

* Sfu Note B, in the Appendix. 

+ Ilazurd, I. 1:20-1^1 ; Brotlliuad, I. VU-lSi. 

X N. Y. Col. Due, I. 37, 139, 181, 262, 38:i-290; Brodliead, I. 148, 151, 1.53, 164, 
200-203, 235. An eniiravins; of the Provineial Seal of New Netherland embellishes 
the t.itle-pa;.;e of this publieation. 



Commemorative Ouatiok'. 13 

possessed or inhabited by any other Christian prince or 
estate." This proviso elearly excepted New France and 
New Netherland.* 

The same j^ear, a second and more successful experi- 
ment was made in colonizing a part of titular New Eng- 
land. This adventure was undertaken, however, before 
the patent of King James was sealed. The emigrants were 
English Puritans, most of whom had enjoyed an asylum 
for several j'ears in Holland, and were so well satisfied 
with its liberal government, that tliey desired to settle 
themselves in America under its Hag. Their minister at 
Leyden, John Robinson, who was versed in the Dutch 
language, accordingly offered to accompany four hundred 
families from Holland and England to New Netherland, and 
plant there a new commonwealth, under the jurisdiction of 
the Prince of Orange and the States- General. But the au- 
thorities of the Republic, preferring tliat their American 
Province should be first colonized by their own citizens, 
and unwilling to excite the jealousy of the King of England, 
by transplanting and protecting there his refractory sub- 
jects, who wished to emigrate, declined to encourage 
Robinson's proi^osition.f The Puritan refugees, having 
obtained a large patent from the English Virginia Com- 
pany, which authorized them to settle themselves south 
of the fortieth degree of latitude — in what now forms 
part of New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland — therefore 
set sail in the Mayflower, intending to make their first 
land at Sandy Hook, which was the best known point. J 

* Hazard, I. 103-118; Trumbuirs Connecticut, I. .'54«-S67; Smith's Virginia; 
Pinlierton, XIII. 208; Clialmers, 81, 83; Brodliead, I. 90-96, 2.52. It is to be re- 
marlvfd that while the tir-t Patent of April, 1006, only readied to the forty-flfth 
degree {ante, p. 10), thi.s second Patent, of November, 1020, grasped three degrees 
farther north. At the time of its grant, the French occupation of Canada was 
notorious, and the Dutch possession of New Netherland must liave been icnown to 
the English authorities; Brodhead, I. 95, 96, 144; Note B, Appendi.x. 

t N. Y. Col. Doe., I. 22-24; Brodhead, I. 115-128; Bradford's Plymouth, 43, 43. 

X The northern boundary of Virginia, according to its second Charter of 1609, 
was two hundred miles north of Point Comfoit, or about the fortieth parallel of 



J 4 COMMEMOHA Tl V K < ) R A TIOiV. 

But, after a boisterous voyage, tliey Avere driveu north- 
ward to Cape Cod ; and, having vainly attempted to sail 
around the shoals of Cape Malebarre, they at length, in 
December, 1620, accidentally landed on the sandy beach 
of New Plj'moutli.* 

This first Puritan colony in New England was followed, 
after a few years, by a larger emigi'ation to Massachusetts 
Bay. Before long, other English settlements were begun 
on the Fresh or Connecticut River, and at New Haven, 
which regions Adriaen Block had discovered, and from 
which it was thought profitable to "crowd the Dutch 
out."t Rhode Island was also founded, in a spirit of 
catholic magnanimity, by fugitives from the sectarian des- 
potism of Massachusetts. The eastern end of Long Island 
(around- the whole of which Block had been the first to 
sail, and which was first laid down on a Dutch map):}; was 
soon afterwards adversely occupied by emigrants from 
Massachusetts and Connecticut. All these settlements, 
except the first one at New Plj-mouth, Avere made under 
the general autliority of the New England Patent ; and, 
in the case of Long Island, under special grants from the 
Earl of Stilling, to whom it had been conveyed by the 
Patentees of James the First. § 

latitude, which intersects the iieighborUood of Barnegat and Philadelphia; 
Chalmers, 25 ; Hazard, I. 58-73 ; Holmes, I. 133 ; Brodhead, I. 15, 1'33, 130, 2:yl It 
has been stated (aiile, p. 12), that the New England Patent of Novcraljer, 1020, 
extended from tlie fortieth degree (or the nortliern boundary of Virginia), north to 
the forty-eighth. The Mayflower "Pilgrims," therefore, intended to settle them- 
selves south of llii: fortieth Jer/ree of latitude, where only their Patent from the Vir- 
ginia Company could advantage them. Mr. J. S. Barry, however, in his recent His- 
tory of Massachusetts, I. 70, conjectures tliat If that Patent should ever be discov- 
ered, it would " he found to cover territory now iiidmled in New }«*." 

* Bradford's Plymouth, 44-SS; Brodhead, I. 12S-133. 

t J. H. Trumbull's Colonial Records of Connecticut, I. .565. 

X See the " Figurative Map," in N. Y. Col. Doe., T. 13, referred to in Note A, in 
Appendix. I do not lind sulHeient evidence that Gomez sailed through Long Island 
Sound, or that it is represented in Riliero's Planisphere of 1.52!); see Palfrey, I. 05, 
CO; Asher's Introduction to " Henry Hudson, the Navigator," lxxxviii.,xci.— xciii., 
cli. The curious copper globe which .Mr. Buckingham Smith recently deposited 
■with the New York Historical Society does not exhibit Long Island. 

§ BroJIiead, I, 183, 208, ZU, 240, 241, 259, 260, 293-300, 32t, 331, 332. 



COMMEilOTlATirE OuATION. li'l 

While these colonies were thus growing on the north 
and east of New Netherland, another English settlement 
was established on her southern frontier. Lord Baltimore, 
a Roman Catholic peer of Ireland, obtained from Charles 
the First, in 1632, a patent for that part of the territory 
of Virginia lying between the north bank of the Poto- 
mac and the fortieth degree of latitude, which, in honor 
of the Queen, was named Maryland. Emigrants, chiefly 
of the Roman faith, soon came over to occupy the Prov- 
ince, which was founded on more liberal principles than 
any that British subjects had yet jilanted in America.* 

In the mean time. New Netherland flourished apace. 
Churches were built ; Dutch clergymen, educated and 
ordained in Holland, were established ; schoolmasters 
were employed, and schools opened ; and laws, based on 
the jurisprudence of the Batavian Republic, were enacted. 
Names familiar in the Fatherland replaced, with more 
affection than good taste, the sonorous and descrij^tive 
nomenclature of the aborigines. The young metropolis 
on Manhattan became NeAV Amsterdam, and hope Avhis- 
pered that the glory of the latter city might, in time, 
eclipse the greatness of the old.f 

The Provincial government of New Netherland was 
vested in a Director and Council, and a Fiscal or Attorney- 
General, appointed by the West India Company. The 
supreme laws of the Province were the ordinances of the 
Director and Council, the instructions of the Company, 
and the statutes and customs of the Fatherland. To 
administer this government and execute these laws, the 
Company ai^pointed Cornells Jacobsen May to be the 
first Director of New Netherland, in 1624. May was suc- 



* Bancroft, I. ^il-lMS ; Biodliead, I. 2.51-2.53. 

+ Brodbead, I. ia3, 19(j, 223, 313, 337, 343, 374, 4fi7. The population of Amster- 
dam, in 1857, was 259,873; that of New Yorl<, in 1860, was 813,609. 



16 Commemorative Ouation. 

ceeded, the next year, by William Verluilst. In 1626, 
Peter Minnit, a man of sagacity, was made Director ; and 
in 1G33 he was r<>placed hy the more stolid \Youter van 
Twiller. Prom 1638 until 1647, William Kieft, a person 
of more activity but less prudence than any of his prede- 
cessors, struggled through a turbulent administration. In 
the su^mmer of 1647, Peter Stuyvesant began a service as 
Director-General, •which lasted for seventeen years, and 
ended only with the downfall of the Dutch dominion.* 

Stuyvesant was one of those remarkable men who 
stamp their names worthily on history. The son of a 
Dutch clergyman in Friesland, he was educated at the 
famous High School at Franeker, where he acquired that 
familiarity with the Latin tongue, Avhich he was always 
rather fond of displaying. Having entered the military 
service of the West India Company, he was sent to Ciira- 
coa as their Director. While in that office he lost a leg in 
a venturesome attack on Saint Martin, and Avas obliged to 
return to Holland. Before long he was promoted to the 
Directorship of New Netherland, whither he sailed, after 
having taken his oath in the presence of the States-Gen- 
eral. f With man}' of the nobler characteristics, Stuyve- 
sant oftentimes exhibited some of the weaker and more 
frivolous qualities of mankind. He delighted in jiomp, 
and the ostentation of desi^otic command. Imperious and 
irascible, he was honest and faithful. Obeying the orders 
of his superiors with scrupulous zeal, he insisted on the 
implicit obedience of his subordinates. If he was arbi- 
trary, he was generally just. He loved his Fatherland, 
her laws, and her religion, with hearty devotion ; and 
if, at times, his earnestness carried him beyond the bounds 
of discretion, none can impeach the sincerity of his jiur- 

* Brodhciui, I. 1.54, 150, 1(V3-104, 32;i, 2:i3, 275, 413, 414, 465. 

+ N. Y. H. S. Cull. (II.) III. 263, 2(>4 ; Col. Doc, I. 164, ITS, 175-17iS; Hrodlic-ad, 
I. 413, 414, 432, 433. A traiishitioii tif Stiiyvesimt's Coniniibsioii is in tlie Appen- 
dix, Note C. 



COMMEMORAriVF. OUATION. 17 

poses, or fail to admire the energetic firmness with wliich 
he enforced his own convictions. 

Under such administration, in s])ite of much selfish mis- 
managennMit on the part of the West India t'ompany, 
New Netherland increased abundantly. Emigrants con- 
stantly came over from Holhmd, while French and English 
subjects flocked in from the neighboring colonies. From 
Massachusetts, especially, several })ersecuted Protestants 
were attracted by the freedom of conscience which was 
the well-known characteristic of tlie Dutch Province. 
Others came from afixr, to shai-e the substantial prosperity 
which its comprehensive system, no less than its ph^ysical 
advantages, insured. "Promote commerce," wrote the 
West India Company to Stuyvesant. in the winter of 1652, 
"whereby Manhattan must prosix-r, her population in- 
crease, her trade and navigation ttouiish. For when these 
once become pemianentlj- established— when the ships of 
New Netherland ride on every part of the ocean — then 
numbers, now looking to that coast with eager eyes, will 
be allured to enil)ark for your island.'"* The ])rophecy 
was splendidly fulfllled. NeAv Amsterdam rapidly grew 
in importance, and Avas allowed a municipal magistracy 
of her own, consisting of Schout. Burgomasters, and Hclie- 
pens, in imitation of her imi)erial namt'sake on the Zuyder 
Zee. Hei- foi-eign commerce soon began to rival her do- 
mestic trade. The first vessel ever built by Europeans in 
North America — after the " Virginia of Sagadahoc," in 
1607 — was Block's significantly named "Restless of Man- 
hattan," in 1614. One of the largest merchantmen in 
Christt^ndom Avas launched by her shipwrights in 1631. 
Strangers eagerly sought burghership in the rising me- 
tropolis, and the tongues of man}' nations resounded 
through her ancient winding streets.f Like her pro- 

« Albany Records, IV. 91; Brodlicad. I. 547; Baueioft, II. 2iH. 

+ Col. Doc, I. SiW, III. 17; Brodlifud, I. 14, 55, 212, 215, 21H, .374,.548; .(«(<-, p. 11. 

3 



18 L'OMMKMOUATIVK ORMIOX. 

totyp*'. New Amsterdam Avas always a city of the 
world. 

Tlie Province of New Netherlaiid was, indeed, the 
most advantageously situated region in Noith America. 
Its original limits included all the Atlantic coast between 
Cape Heulopen and Montauk Point, and even farther east 
and north, and all the inland territory bounded by the 
Connecticut Valley on the east, the Saint Lawrence and 
Lake Ontario on the north, and the affluents of the Ohio, 
the Susquelianna, and the Delaware, on the west and 
south. Within those bounds is the only spot on the con- 
tinent whence issue divergent streams wliich find their 
outlets in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the Atlantic Ocean, 
and the Grulf of Mexico.* Across the surface of the 
Province runs a chain of the Alleglianies, through which, 
in two remarkable chasms, the waters of the Delaware 
and the Hudson flow soutliward to the sea. At the head 
of its tides, the Hudson, Avhich its explorers appropriately 
called "the Great River of the Mountains," receives the 
current of the Mohawk, rushing in from the west: 
Through the valleys of these rivers, and aci-oss the neigh- 
boring lakes, the savage natives of the country tracked 
those pathways of travel and commerce which ciA^ilized 
science only ado])ted and improved. f Along their banks 
soon grew up flourishing villages, contributing to the 
prosperity of the chief town, which, with unerring judg- 
ment, had been planted on the ocean-washed island of 
Manhattan. In addition to these superb geographical 
peculiarities, every variety of soil ; abundant mineral 
wealth ; nature, grand, beautiful, and picturesque, and 
teeming with vegetable and animal life ; and a climate as 
healthful as it is delicious, made New Netherland the most 



* The -n-ater-shcd of Central New York was the seat of the Iroquois Confedera- 
tion, long hefurr European fliscovery. 
+ The Erie Canal and the Delaware and Hudson Canal follow the old Indian trails. 



Commemorative Ouatiox. 19 

attractive of all the European colonies in America. Fioni 
the first it was always the chosen seat of empire. 

It was the wise decree of Providence that this magnifi- 
cent region shoiild first be occupied by the Batavian race. 
There was expanded the germ of a mighty cosmopolitan 
State, destined to exert a moral influence as happy as the 
pliysical peculiarities of its temperate territory were 
alluring. Yet the growth and prosperity of the Dutch 
Province were fatal to its political life. The envy of its 
neighbors was aroused. Covetousness produced an irre- 
pressible desire of possession, which could be appeased 
only by its violent seizure by uuscrupidous foes. 

If at this time Englishmen had any one national charac- 
teristic more strongly developed than another, it Avas 
jealousy of the Dutch. Strangely, too, this sentiment 
seemed to have grown with tlie growth of Puritanism. It 
was enough for the British islander that the continental 
Hollander spoke a language different from his own. It 
mattered not that Coster, of Haerlem, invented the art of 
arts ; or that Grotius, Erasmus, Hooft, and Vondel, among 
scholars, and Boerhaave and Huygens, among philoso- 
phers, and Rembrandt, and Cuyp, and Wouverman, 
among painters, were illustrious sons of the liberal Repub- 
lic. Even William the Silent and Barneveldt were of little 
account among insular Britons — •' divided from all the rest 
of the world."* Coarse wit and flippant ridicule were 
continually employed in educating the Englishman to un- 
dervalue and dislike the Hollander. On the otlier hand, 
Holland, at the zenith of her power, was not jealous of 
England. The Dutch maxim was ''Live and let live.'". 
Both nations were fairly matched in military and naval 

*" Toto divisos orbe Britannos" Virg. Ec, I. 67. Drvden, in his transliition of 
Virgil, dfscribes his early countrymen as — 

" A race of men from nil the world disjoined. '^ 



20 <'<i.M.]/J:\vo/rmvK Oratiox. 

strenotli. During tlie pt'riod of the English Conmion- 
wcaltiu tlie onlj' oppoi'tunity had occurred of testing 
against eacli other the skill of their admirals and tlie valor 
of their seamen. If Blake and Ayscue maintained the 
honor of their flag, De Ruyter Avon equal glory, and Tromp 
placed a broom at his mast-head, in token that he had 
swept the channel clear of English ships. Both nations 
were Pi-otestant. and each had learned to respect the jjro- 
verbial courage of the other. But the commerce of the 
Dutch Republic was now the vastest in the world. 

" The Sun but seemed tlie laliourer of the year : 
Each waxiii!!: Moon supplied her watery store, 

To swell those tides wliieli from the line did bear 
Their brim-full vessels to the Belgian shore/'* 

Such splendid prosperity of a rival, the selfishness of 
England could not brook ; and Drvden took care to stimu- 
late tlie envy of his countrymen when he wrote of the 
Hollanders : 

" As Cato fruits of Afiie did display, 
Let us before our eyes theii- Indies lay: 
All loyal English will like him conclude — 
Let (Jifisar live, and (;arthai;e be subdued. "t 

This sentiment of jealousy accompanied the English 
colonists to America, and even burned more fiercely in 
some parts of the wilderness. The motives to their emi- 
gration were various. The communities which they 
founded were dissimilar. Virginia Avas occupied by 
Royalists, Avho admired the hierarchy ; NeAV England by 
Puritans, who abhorred prelacy ; ^laryland by larger- 
minded Roman Catholics. But all these were Britons — 
naturally selfish, exclusiA'^e, and OA'erbearing — Avho, Avith 
marked differences in creeds and fashions, Avere still the 
subjects of a common sovereignty, and, as such, felt a 

* Urydcn's Annus Mirabilis, 16(5(5. 
t Satire on the Dutch, 1(5(52. 



COMMKilORATI VE ORATION. 21 

common enmity against tiie colonists of that nation wiiicli 
was the sucressfnl rival of their own. 

Tliis antipathj', however, was not eqiiall}' strong in all 
the Englisli colonies. It Avas slight in Virginia ; it waxed 
hotter in Maryland ; while it blazed into malignant envy 
in New England. Between Virginia and New Netherland, 
the relations had almost always been friendly, because 
neither had injured, while each had benetited tlie other. 
With Maryland, embarrassing questions had aiisen re- 
specting the occupation of the Delaware by the Dutch and 
the Swedes. But from the time of the first intercourse 
between Manhattan and New Plymouth, the Puritan 
emigrants pertinacioush' insisted that the Dutch colonists 
of New Netherland Avere "'intruders"' into Ncav England. 
With inconsistent reasoning, but characteristic assiirance, 
they maintained their own title under the patent of 1620, 
while they denied that of the Hollanders, Avhich Avas re- 
cognized in its proA'iso.* Gradually they croAvded on, 
AA^estAvard of the Connecticut River, until, in 16.'i(), it Avas 
agreed between StuyA^esant and the NeAV England authori- 
ties that the eastern boundary of NeAV Netherland should 
be Oyster Bay on Long Island, and a line running noitherly 
from GreenAvich on the continent. Mainly through their 
repi'esentations, CroniAvell directed an expedition to wrest 
from the Dutch Republic its American Territory. But, by 
the treaty of 1654, the Protector virtually conceded New 
Netherland to Holland. The States-General, in 1656. 
ratified the colonial boundarA' agreement of 1650 ; but the 
British Government avoided any action on the subject, 
and the Dutch Province continued, for a Avhile longer, to 
be what New England Avriters have pertly called " a thorn 
in the side."t 



*8ee ante^ p. 13; Appendix, Note B. 

tN. T. Col. Doc, I. 283-293, 3&t. 451, 458. 460, 404, 471, 475, 480, 487, 541, .548, 
.5,5(i-575, filO-(il2: Brorihead, I. 519, 520, 544, .545, 58H, 001, 602; P;iltVey, II. 372. 



22 VuMMEMOHATI VE OHATluN. 

Ill the history of States, might generally overbears right. 
Of this fate New Netherlaud was a conspicuous example. 
While Maryland threatened on the South, Connecticut, 
which had constantly encroached westward along the 
Sound, procured, in 1662, from the heedless King of 
England, a patent which covered a large part of the Dutch 
Province, the inhabitants of which she did not scruple to 
describe as her ' ' noxious neighbours. ' " Under this patent, 
Connecticut extended her jurisdiction as far as West- 
(ihester on the mainland, and over nearly the whole of 
Long Island. Attempts were even made, under the lead 
of Captain John Scott, to reduce the suburban Dutch vil- 
lages of Brooklyn, MidAVOut or Flatbush, Amersfoort, 
New Utrecht, and Bushwick. To these bold encroach- 
ments Stuyvesant could offer only a feeble resistance. 
Justice and weight of argument were on his side, but his 
adversaries had the decisive advantage of superior num- 
bers. The most that could be done Avas to put the Dutch 
capital in a condition of defence against any attack of a 
colonial enemy. The danger wMcli menaced the Province 
induced the Director to resort to the people, as he and his 
predecessor had been obliged to call on them before. A 
Landtdag, or Assembly of deputies from the several towns, 
was accordingly convened at New Amsterdam, in the 
spring of 1664. It was there determined that, without aid 
from the home government, it would be impossible to 
regain the towns on Long Island which the English, who 
were six to one, had usurped from the Dutch. Ilepeated 
appeals had been sent to the West India Company for 
re-enforcements, by which alone could the rest of New 
Netherlaud be preserved to Holland. Its population was 
now full ten thousand, and that of New Amsterdam about 
fifteen hundred. In spite of the clouds which lowered 
around the narrowing horizon of the Province, Stuyvesant 
hopefully looked forward to its becoming still more proti- 



Commemorative Oratiox. 23 

table to the Fatherland, and urged upon the company 
that its waste lands, which could feed a hundred thousand 
inhabitants, shftuld be peopled at once by the oppressed 
Protestants of France, Savoy, and Germany. * 

Yet the perilous condition of New Netherland was not 
rightly appreciated in Holland. It had been unwisely 
intrusted to the government of a great commercial mo- 
nopoly, which thought more of its tailing corporate in- 
terests than of those of the nation, or of its colonists in 
America. When, at length, the danger which threatened 
the Province could not be disregarded, the States- General 
took insufficient measures to contirm their power there. 
In January, 1664, they desired the British Government to 
order the restitution of all places which the King's sub- 
jects had usurped from the Hollanders in NeAv Netherland, 
and the cessation of further aggressions.f But Sir George 
Downing, the English ambassador at the Hague, who 
was one of the earliest, ablest, and most disreputable 
graduates from Harvard College in Massachusetts, could 
not forget the prejudices he had imbibed, and startled the 
Grand Pensionary De Witt by claiming that the inhabit- 
ants of the Dutch Province were " the incroachers " upon 
New England. + 

Downing' s words were full of ominous import. The 
Restoration of King Cliarles the Second was the prognostic 
of the fate of New Netherland. One of the first acts of 
his reign was to appoint a Council for Foreign Planta- 
tions, with orders to render "those dominions useful to 
England, and England helpful to them." This was the 
key to the British colonial policy. A new Navigation 
Law was passed, more eflectually to cripple Dutch com- 

* N. Y. Col. Doc, II. 2:M, 248, 368, 374, 389-409, 512; Valentine's Manual, ISBO, 
592; Tnimluiirs Connecticut, I. 249, 252,26.5,513; Brotllicacl, I. 317, 325,474 475* 
.559, 695, 702, 703, 719. 722, 723, 726, 728, 729, 733, 734; Appendix, note G. ' ' ' 

t Col. Doc., II. 227; Brodhead, I. 730. 

J Lister's Cliirendon, III. 276; Col. Doc, II. 416-418, »nU. 



24 CiiMM i-:mohativk Ohatiox. 

merce by excliulinji all foreign vessels from trading with 
any of the Englisli colonies in Asia, Africa, or America. 
Soon afterwards. Lord Stirling complained that the Dutch 
liad intruded into Long Island, which had been conveyed 
to his grandfather, and ])rayed that they might be subdued 
or expelled. While this subject Avas under the considera- 
tion of the Plantation Council, it was found that the Navi- 
gation Act Avas disregarded or evaded in the English- 
American colonies. The trade carried on between New 
Netherland and Virginia, Maryland, and New England, 
was reported to be a loss to the King of many thousand 
pounds a year. A nioi-e stringent Navigation Law Avas 
therefore enacted. Still the forbidden intercolonial traffic 
was continued. The statute could not be enforced as long 
as New Netherland remained a Dutch Province. It was 
necessary to the success of that most intensely selfish law 
that NeAV Netherland should be under the gOA^ernment of 
England, and it was determined that it should be I'educed 
to subjection.* 

The easiest Avay to sustain this characteristic logic Avas 
to insist that the Butch Province Avas the true inheritance 
of the English King. Under this pretence, the means to 
obtain its possession could be mildly called a Resumption 
rather than a I^surpation. The Dutch title to their ProA'- 
ince, although, in the judgment of Louis the Fourteenth 
himself, it was "the best founded, "f Avas as little regarded 
by Charles the Second as tlte injunctions of thi^ Decalogue. 
NotAvithstanding the rule asserted bA' Queen Elizabeth, 
and conhrmed b}' Parliament ; the proviso in the Patent 
of James the First, and the continuous occupation of NeAV 
Netherland by Hollanders, Lord Chancellor Clarendon, 
under the instigation of DoAvning, Avas not ashamed to 
pronounce that they had "no colour of right" to its pos- 

* Col. Doc, III. ;«, 40-50; BrocUic'nd, I. 080, 70:.>, 73.5, <:«. 
+ D'Estrades'b Letters, &c.. III. :;-tO. 



Co MMEil OR ATI VE Or A TI X 25 

session.* Clarendon then purchased for his son-in-law, 
James, Duke of York and Albany, Lord Stirling's claim 
to Pemaquid and Long Island, and advised the King to 
grant a new Patent to the Duke, including those regions, 
together Avith all the Dutch territory on the mainland. f 

Accordingly, on the Twelfth of March, 1664, Charles 
granted, under the Gre-at Seal, to his brother James, a 
part of Maine, the whole of Long Island, Martha's Vine- 
yard and Nantucket, and the Hudson River, with all the 
mainland from the west side of the Connecticut to the east 
side of Delaware Bay. The Grant included all those ])or- 
tions of the present States of Connecticut and Massachu- 
setts lying west of the Connecticut River, as well as the 
Avhole of Vermont and New Jersey. His Patent invested 
the Duke with "full and absolute power" to govern all 
English subjects, inhabiting this territory, according to 
English law, and authorized him or his agents to expel by 
force all jiersons who might dwell there without his special 
license. It was the most impudent, as it Avas the most 
despotic instrument ever recorded in the Colonial Archives 
of Great Britain. J 

This action of Charles the Second was not, hoAvever, 

* Lister's Clarendon, III. 347. 

t Col. Doc, III. ai5, 606, 607, V. 330, VIL 431; Duer's Life of Slirliiic. 37,38. 

t Sec Patent at length in the State Library at Albany ; in Book of Patents in Secre- 
tary's Office, I. 10i>-11.5; in Leaniini;: and Spieer's Grants and Concessions, 3-8; and 
in N. Y. Colonial Documents, II, 29.5-21)8. See also Col. Doe., VII. 597, and A^IL 
107, 436, for description of the territory i^n'anted. If this Patent was good as far as 
it related to the territory in Maine, Long Island, Martha's A^ineyard, and Nantucket, 
which the English already possessed, it was certainly invalid in regard to the Dutch 
Province, of which tlie grantor never had possession. Even Chalmers, in his Politi- 
cal Annals, p. 579, says, that "As the validity of the grant to the Duke of York, 
while the Dutch were in quiet possession of the country, had been very justly ques- 
tioned, he thought it prudent to obtain a ucw one, in June, 1674." See also Col. 
Doc, V. .596, VII. 596, 597. It is woiUiy of remark that by his first Patent, of 12 
March, 1664, the Duke was authorized to govern on!// Fnglis/i subjects inhabiting his 
territory; and that in his second Patent, of 29 June, 1674, tlie words, "oc ««)/ oilier 
person or persoits," were added; see Col. Doe., II. 296, and Learning and Spicer, 
5 and 42. After obtaining possession of New Netherland, therefore, the Duke 
could not govern its Dutch inhabitants unless as Briti.-^h subjects; but he could 
expel them if they remained there without his permission. 



'2{j VOMMF.MOnATIVt: OllATIOtf. 

iiiHueiiced by any sympathy with the likes or the dislikes 
of his New England subjet^ts. They had received the 
tidings of his Restoration witli distrnst, and had pro- 
claimed him King witli peevish austerity. If he had 
been induced to grant a part of New Netherlaud to Con- 
necticut, he took pains to avoid his careless bounty by a 
more unscrupulous appropi-iation to his own brother. 
The age of Chartered Oligarchies had passed away. 
Royal or Proprietary Governments were tlienceforth to 
enforce the British Colonial i)olicy. New England was 
now in disfavor at Wliitehall ; and the Duke of York 
was desired by the Privy Council to name Commissioners, 
whom the King determined to send thither, to see how 
the several Colonies observed their Charters, and to settle 
their differences about boundaries. James accordingly 
selected four persons, whom history has honored with an 
unequal notoriety. Tlie first was Colonel Richard Nicolls ; 
a university scholar, a brave soldier, and a prudent officer, 
who had been the Duke's companion in exile, and was 
one of the Grooms of his bedchamber. The other three 
W(n'e Sir Robert Cai-r and Colonel George Cartwright, of 
the Royal Army, and Samuel Maverick, a former resident 
in Massachusetts. These Commissioners were furnished 
witli full instructions to guide their conduct in America. 
One of tliese instructions Avas, to obtain the active assist- 
ance of the New England Colonies in reducing the Dutch 
in New Netherlaud to subjection.* 

The Duke of York also commissioned Nicolls, on tlie 
second of April, to be his Deputy-Governor in the terri- 
tory which the King had given him, and execute all the 
powers which his Patent authorized. f To gain posses- 
sion, by force if necessary, was the next step. As Lord 

* Col. Dof., III. 51-65; Mass. H. S. Coll., XXXII. 284; Notes and Queries (II.), 
III. 214-216. 

+ A copy of the Duke of York's oonimission to Nicolls is in the Appendix, 
Note I). 



Com MEM OH A Tl VE (J n A TIOX. 27 

High Admiral of England, James assigned for the reduc- 
tion of New Netherland the frigate Guinea, of thirty-six 
guns, Captain Hugh Hyde ; the Ellas, of thirty, Cajjtain 
William Hill ; the Martin, of sixteen, Captain Edward 
Grove ; and a chartered transport, the William and Nicho- 
las, of ten, Captain Thomas Morley. Early in Maj' the 
Royal Commissioners embarked in these vessels, with 
about four hundred and fifty veteran soldiers, forming 
three full companies, commanded by Colonels NicoUs, 
Carr, and Cartwright, under wliom were sevei-al other 
commissioned officers in the British Araiy. Among these 
were Captains Mathias NicoUs, Robert Needham, Harry 
Norwood, and Daniel Brodhead, some of whom, intending 
to settle themselves permanently in New Netherland, after 
its acquisition, were accompanied by their families. The 
expedition, which was well j^rovided with all necessaries 
for war, set sail from Portsmouth in th(! middle of May, 
with orders to make its first anchorage in Gardiner' s Bay, 
at the eastern end of Long Island. * 

These portentous movements did not escape the atten- 
tion of the Dutch Government at the Hague. As early as 
February, 1664, Stuyvesant had distinctly warned the 
West India Company of the King' s intended grant to the 
Duke of York, and that not only Long Island, but the 
whole Province, would be lost to Holland unless speedy 
re-enforcements should be sent. The Company, however, 
now on the verge of bankruptcy, replied with marvellous 
infatuation, in the following April, that the Royal Com- 
missioners were only going to install Bishops in New 
England, the inhabitants of which, who had gone there to 
escape Prelacy, would rather live under Dutch authority, 
with freedom of conscience, than risk that in order to fall 



* Patents, III. 43; Col. Doc, II. 343, 44.5, 501, III. 70, 104, 117, 149; Smith's 
New York. I. 16; Clarke's James the Second, I. 400; Hazard's .Annals of Penn., IV. 
81; Coll. Ulster Hist. Sec, I. 51; Brodhead, I. 736, TAl, 744, note; Wood, 144. 



28 COMMEMOHATIVK ORATION. 

under a government from wiiicli tliey liad foiTnerly fled. 
This absurd letter had scarcely been dispatched before the 
real object of Nicolls's expedition was better understood. 
Downing bluntly told I)e Witt that New Netherland 
existed "only in the maps."* Prompt orders to De Ruy- 
ter, who was then on his waj' to the Mediterranean, might 
have hurried his fleet to Manhattan in time to aid Stuyve- 
sant in rejmlsing the treacherous force of England. But a 
purblind confidence in the honor of Charles the Second, 
and an unjust estimate of the importance to the Fatherland 
of its American Province, clouded the Grand Pensionary's 
judgment. The necessary orders were not sent to De 
Ruyter, and New Nethei'land was abandoned to her fate. 

A tedious voyage of ten weeks broiight the squadron of 
Nicolls to Boston. The Royal Commissioners immedi- 
ately demanded the assistance of the New England colo- 
nies; which Massachusetts promised, with frugal reluc- 
tance, while Connecticut showed more selfish zeal, be- 
cause slie hoped to secure Long Island to herself. Piloted 
by Boston mariners, tlie English ships then sailed for tlie 
mouth of the Hudson ; and, on the sixteenth of August 
(Old Style), the leading frigate Guinea, with Nicolls and his 
colleagues on board, anchored just inside of Cone}' Island, 
at Nyack, or New Utrecht Bay, where she was joined, 
two days afterwards, by the other vessels. Here the 
King's Commissioners Avere met by John AVinthrop, Sam- 
uel Willys, and other Connecticut magistrates. Thomas 
Willett, also, appeared on the part of New Plymouth. 
John Scott was likewise at hand, with a force "jiressed" at 
New Haven. The train-bands of Southold, and the other 
English towns at the eastern end of Long Island, under 
John Younge, soon increased the threatening array. 
Northern Indians and French rovers were held as re- 

* Col. Doc, II. a.34, 235, 236, 367, 408, 493; Lister's Clarendon, III. SOT, 320. 




/^^^ Ipyri- Z&t^ 



GOW.RNtiR OF CONNECTICUT. 



Commemorative Oration. 29 

serves. Thomas Clarke and John Pynchon hastened from 

Massachusetts to the Royal Commissioners ; but as there 
was already gathered an overpowering strength, the ser- 
vices of the auxiliaries promised by that Colony were not 
required. * '' 

The harbor of New Amsterdam Avas at once blockaded, 
and the Long Island farmers were forbidden to furnish 
supplies to the City. A Proclamation was issued by the 
Royal Commissioners, on the twentieth of August, pro- 
mising that all persons, of any nation, who would submit 
to the King's Government, should peaceably enjoy their 
estates, "and all other privileges, with His Majesty's 
English subjects." The inhabitants of Long Island were 
specially summoned to meet the (Commissioners at Gi-aves- 
end, a few days afterwards. Large numbers accordingly 
attended, when Nicolls published the Duke of York's 
Patent and his own Commission, and demanded their sub- 
mission to his authority. Winthrop, as Governor of Con- 
necticut, declared that, as the King's pleasure was now 
made known, the claim of that Colony to the Island ceased. 
Nicolls, on his part, promised to confirm all the then offi- 
cers in their places, and call an Assembly, Avhere laws 
should be enacted. This assurance quelled opposition. 
Long Island, inhabited chiefly by English subjects, sub- 
mitted at once to the Government of the Duke of York ; 
and the militia from its eastern towns, under Younge, 
joining with the New England auxiliaries, marched from 
Amersfoort and Flatbush towards Brooklyn, to assist the 
Royal expedition in reducing Ncav Amsterdam, f 

Lulled into a false security by the unhappy letter of the 



» Mass. Kec, IV. (II.) 117-138, 141, 149, 157-168; N. Y. General Entries, I. 3-7, 
89; Col. Doc, II. 373, 410, 414, 43S, .501, III. 65, 66, 84; New Haven Rec., II. 550; 
Thompson's Long Island, I. 137 ; TnimbuU's Conn., I. 267; Morton's Memorial, 
311, note; Appendix, Note II. 

t Col. Doc., II. 410, 414, 434, 438, 443, .501; Oyster Bay Kec., A. 19; N. Y. Gen. 
Ent., I. 7, 8; Thompson, I. 134, II. 323, 338. 



30 Commemorative Oration. 

West India Company and certain contradiotoiT statements 
of Willett, Stiiyvesant liad nieainvhile suspended the 
measures wliieli lie had begun to take for tlie defence of 
the Capital, and had gone up to Fort Orange, to repress 
some hostilities that had broken out among the savages in 
its neighborhood. On learning the approach of the Eng- 
lish forces, the Director hurried back to New Amsterdam, 
which he reached on the fifteenth of August — or the 
twenty-fifth, according to the New Style— only one day be- 
fore the Guinea Frigate anchored at Nyack, in the lower 
Bay. In concert with the Municipal authorities, every 
possible measure was taken for the defence of the Metro- 
polis. All the inhabitants, Avithout exception, were or- 
dered to labor in strengthening the " old and rotten pali- 
sades," which could hardlj^ be called fortifications ; a 
constant guard was established ; the brewers were forbid- 
den to malt any grain ; and heavy guns, furnished hy the 
Director, were mounted on the indefensible works. 

But the condition of the City was hopeless. No aid 
could be obtained from Long Island. The regular garri- 
son in Fort Amsterdam did not exceed one hundred and 
fifty men, and its supply of powder was very short. Its 
low earthen walls, originally built to resist an attack 
of the savages, and overlooked, on the north, by the 
"HeereAveg," or Broadway, might have been sufficient 
against any Colonial force, but could not be held against 
the ships and the veterans of Nicolls. The Director had, 
long before, expressed his militarj- opinion, that "who- 
ever by water is master of the river, will be, in a short 
time, master by land of the feeble fortress." The antici- 
pated contingency had now actually happcMied, and a 
hostile English squadron was in full command of the port. 
The burghers, of wliom ovl\j two hundred and lift}' were 
able to bear arms, thought more of protecting their own 
properly, and of obtaining favorable terms of capitula- 



Commemorative Oration. 31 

tion, than of defending their open town against the over- 
whelming superioi-ity of tlie invaders. The whole City 
force, placed man hj man, four rods apart, could not 
guard its hastily-built "little breastwork."* 

Nevertheless, Stuyvesant determined to hold out to the 
last. To the peremptory summons of Nicolls, he opposed 
as able a vindication of the Butch title to New Netherland 
as the most experienced publicist could have drawn. 
This was conveyed to Grravesend on Tuesday, the twenty- 
third of August — or the second of September, according 
to the New Style — by four of the most trusted advisers of 
the Provincial and the City Governments, who were in- 
structed to "argue the matter" with the English Com- 
mander. But reasoning was useless in the absence of 
De Ruyter. Avoiding discussion, Nicolls answered that 
the question of right did not concern liim ; — it must be 
decided by tlie King of England and the States-General. 
He was determined to take the place ; and if the reason- 
able terms he had offered were not accepted, he would 
attack the City, for wliich purpose, at the end of forty- 
eight hours, he would bring his forces up nearer. ' ' On 
Thursday, the fourth," he added, "I will speak with you 
at the Manhattans." The Dutch deputies replied: 
"Friends will be welcome if they come in a friendly 
manner." "I shall come ^v\i\\ my ships and soldiers," 
said Nicolls. "and he will be a bold messenger, indeed, 
who shall then dare to come on board and solicit terms." 
To the demand of Stuyvesant' s delegates: " What then is 
to be done V ' he answered, ' ' Hoist the white flag of peace 
at the Fort, and then I may take something into consider- 
ation !"t 

*Col. Doc, II. SJiS, 373, 410, 43:3, 4.34, 438, 439, 440, 441, 44:3, 44C, 475, 494, 50.5; 
Val. Man., I860, 593, 1861, 00:3-605; New Amsterdam Re<'Ortls, V. .553-5.54, 567-570; 
Albany Records, XVIII. :319; Letter of Domine Samuel Drisius, of 15 September, 
1664; Appendix, Notes G. and H. 

tCol. Doc, II. 411^14; Smith, I. 18-36; Hazard's Reg. Peun., IV. 31, 41, 43; 



1 

32 COMMK.MOHATIVE ORATIOX. 

Nicolls, indeed, had no wish to i^roceed to extremities. 
His summons was imperious, but iiis policy was to obtain 
a bloodless possession of the Dutch Province. He there- 
fore authorized ^Vinthrop to assure Stujvesant that, if it 
should be surrendered to the King, there should be free 
intercourse with Holland in Dutch vessels, or a virtual 
suspension of the English navigation laws. Tliis was 
communicated to Stuyvesant at New Amsterdam, on the 
same day that his messengers saw McoUs at Grravesend. 
But all the persuasions of tlie Connecticut Governor coxdd 
not move the patriotic Director. In vain did he tear in 
pieces Winthrop's friendly letter. The people, who soon 
learned the liberal offers of the Englisli, became mutinous ; 
work on the fortifications ceased ; complaints against tlie 
West India Company Avere freelv uttered ; and it was 
pronounced impossible to defend the City, "seeing that 
to resist so many was nothing else than to gape before an 
oven."* 

Perceiving tliat Stuyvesant was disposed to hold out, 
Nicolls ordered the squadron to move up from their an- 
chorage near Gravesend, and reduce the Diitch "under 
His Majesty's obedience." Again messengers came down 
from New Amsterdam, projiosing a cessation of hostilities, 
and the appointment of Commissioners to treat about "a 
good accommodation." The English commander replied 
that he would willingly appoint Conmiissioners "to treat 
upon Articles of Surrender." At the solicitiition of the 
Dutch delegates, orders were given that the sliips shoiild 
not precipitately lire on the city. But Nicolls declined 

Val. Man., 1860, 592; Albany Records, XVIII. 31(1, 320, XXII. 317; Appendix, 
Note G. 

*Gen. Ent., I. 12; Mass. H. S. Coll., XXXVI. 537-.539; Col. Doc., II. 444, 445, 
476. The orijfinal draft of Winthrop's letter to Stuyvesant, of 22 August (1 Sep- 
tember), 1664, with the autograph approval of the Royal Commissioners, Nicolls, 
Carr, and Cartwrif;ht, is in tlie possession of Mr. Benjamin Robert Wiuthrop, one 
of the Vice-Presidents of the New York Historical Society, who is a lineal descend- 
ant of both the New Netlierland and Connecticut Govuruore. 



Commemorative On.xTioN. 33 

their request that his troops should not be brought up 
nearer. "To-daj^ I shall arrive at the Perr3%" he added, 
— "to-morrow Ave can agree with one anothei'."* 

On Thursday, the twenty-lifth of August {ov the fourth 
of September), the British infantrj^, consisting of three 
companies of regular soldiers, eager for loot, were, ac- 
cordingly landed at Graveseud, whence Nicolls marched 
at their head to "the Ferry," at Biooklj-n, where the 
New England and Long Island militia wei-e already 
posted. Two of the frigates tlien sailed up the Bay, and 
anchored near "Nutten," or Governor's Island. The 
other two — coming on with full sail, and all their guns, of 
one battery, ready to pour tlieir broadsides on the -'open 
place," if any hostilities should be begun against tliem — 
passed in front of Fort Amsterdam, and anchored above 
the City. Watcliing their approach from a parapet of 
the Fort, Stuj'vesant was about to order his gunner to 
fire on the enejnj', when the two Poniines Megapolensis, 
leading him away between them, persuaded liim not to 
begin hostilities. Leaving fifty men in the Fortress, under 
the command of the Fiscal De Sille, the Director, at the 
head of one hundred of the garrison, marched out into 
the City, in order to prevent the English from attempting 
to land "here and there. "f 

By tliis time the Dutch garrison in Foi-t Amsterdam had 
become "demoralized." Tliey openly talked of "where 
booty is to be got, and where the 3'oung women live Avho 
wear chains of gold." Reports also came from Long- 
Island, that the New England levies declared that "their 
business was not onl}' Avith NeAV Netherland, but Avith the 
booty and plunder." Their threats caiised the burghers 

*Gen. Ent., I. 13, 14, 15, 21, 22, 27, 38; Alb. Rec, XA'III. 321; Col. Doc, II. 
414; Hazard's Rck. Penn., IV. 31, 42, 43; Smith, I. 27; S. Sinitli's New Jerst-y, 40, 
41, 43: Biodhead, I. 740. 

tCoI. Doc, II. 414, 423,444, 44.=), .501, .=j02, .503, 508, .509; A'al. Man., 1860, 592; 
Lc-tter ol Drisius; Appendix, Notes (i. and H. 



34 CoMMKitORATlVE Oil ATI OS'. 

of New Amsterdam to look upon them as " deadly ene- 
mies, who exjjected notliing else than pillage, phuider, 
and bloodshed." Moreover, it was understood tliat six 
hundred Northern Indians, and one hundred and fifty 
French privateersmeu, with English commissions, had 
offered their services against the Dutch. Seeing that it 
was impossible to defend tlie place, the whole population 
of which was only fifteen hundred, against a powerful 
squadron and more than a thousand well-armed foes, 
the municipal authorities, the clergy, the officers of the 
burgher-guard, and most of the leading citizens, joined in 
a Remonstrance, drafted by the elder Domine Megapo- 
lensis, urging the Dii'ector and Council to accept the terms 
offered by the English commander. His threats, it stated, 
" would not have been at all regarded, could your Honors, 
or we your Petitioners, expect the smallest aid or succour. 
But, God help us ! whether we turn for assistance to the 
north or to the south, to the east or to the west, it is all vain ! 
On all sides we are encompassed and hemmed in by our 
enemies." Women and childi^en came in tears, beseech- 
ing Stuyvesant to parley. To all their supplications he 
replied : " I had much rather be carried out dead !"* 

At length, almost solitary in his heroism, the Dutcli 
Director Avas obliged to yield. Further opposition on 
his part woixld have been unavailing, and might have 
deprived the people of the advantages to be gained by a 
capitulation. It Avas some solace that the English Com- 
mander, now encamped at the Brooklyn Ferry, "before 
the Manhatans," voluntarily offered to restore the Fort and 
the City, in case the differences about boundaries in Amer- 
ica should be arranged between the King and the States- 
General. Moreover, Stuyvesant' s religion consoled him 
Avith the text in Saint Lidve, that Avith ten thousand men 

» Alb. Ren., XVIII. 320, 321 ; Cnl. nnc, 11. 248, 249, 3R», 42.3, 47(5, .503, .50S; Val. 
Man., 18<50, .i92; Letter of Dri&ius; Appendix, notes G. and H. 





> Sw^-P^Wv^cfO 



Co MME MORATn 'E Or A Ti y. 35 

he could not meet him that came against him Avith twent}- 
thousand.* And if, in that bitter hour, the bi'ave old 
chief could call to mind the classical learning which he 
had acquired in his Fatherland, he might \ve\l have ap- 
plied to himself the sad words which the shade of Hector 
addressed to ^neas : 

" Could any mortal hand prevent our fate, 
This hand, and this alone, had saved tlie State."f 

Six Commissioners were accordingly appointed on each 
side, on Friday, the twenty-sixth of August, or fifth of 
September, to settle tlie tenns of surrender. Those on the 
part of the Dutch were John de Decker, Nicholas Varlett, 
and Samuel Megapolensis, representing the Director and 
Council, and Cornells Steenwyck, Oloft" Stevensen van 
Cortlandt, and Jacques Cousseau, representing the City 
authorities. Besides his two colleagues. Sir Robert Carr 
and Colonel George Cartwright, Nicolls chose John Win- 
throp and Samuel Willys, of Connecticut, and Thomas 
Clarke and John Pynchon, of Massachusetts, in order to 
engage those two colonies more firmly with the Royal 
expedition, "if the Dutch had been over-confident of their 
strength." The commissioners on both sides met at Stuy- 
vesant's "Bouwery," or farm, on Saturday, the twenty- 
seventh of August, or sixth of September, and arranged 
the Articles of Capitulation. All the inhabitants of New 
Netherland were to continue free denizens, and were 
guaranteed their property ; while the Diitch were to 
enjoy "their own customs concerning their inheritances," 
and "the liberty of their consciences in divine worship 
and church discipline." Free trade with Holland was 
stipulated. The existing magistrates were to remain in 
office until their terms expired. The Articles of Capitula- 

* Gen. Ent., I. 30, 31; Col. Doc, II. 440; Saint Luke's Gospel, xiv. 31; Appen- 
dix, note E. 
+ Pitt's translation of Virgil, vEneid, II. 



3(5 ('OMMKMOIIATIVE OliATlON. 

tion worn to be I'ivtificd on both sides, and exchanged on 
the next Monda3' morning, at tlie "Old Mill,"'* on the 
East River, near what is now the foot of Roosevelt street, 
wlien the Citj^ and the Fort wei-e to be surrendei'ed, and 
the Dutch garrison were to march out, with arms shoul- 
dered, drums beating, colors Hying, and matches lighted, f 

These conc^iliatorj' and verj^ advantageous terms were 
explained to the citizens at the Town Hall, on the follow- 
ing Sunday, at the close of the second service in the 
afternoon — the last which was expected to be celebrated 
under the Dutch tiag — in Kieft's old church in Fort Am- 
sterdam. It Avas also quietly agreed between Stuyvesant 
and Nicolls that the Xew England and Long Island auxil- 
iaries should be kept at the Ferry, on the Brooklyn 
side of the East River; because the burghers "were 
more apprehensive of being plundered by tliem tlian by 
the others.":}: 

On Monday morning, the twenty-ninth of August, or 
eighth of September, Stuyvesant, having ratified the 
Capitulation, placed himself at the head of his garrison, 
and marched out of Fort Amsterdam with all the honors 
of war. The Dutch soldiers, who saw no enemj^ moved 
sullenly down Beaver street to the water-side, Avhence 
they were quickly embarked on the ship Gideon for Hol- 
land. Colonel Cartwright, with his company, now occu- 
pied the City gates and the Town Hall. Accompanied by 
the Burgomasters, who "gave him a Avelcome reception," 
Nicolls, at the head of his own and Sir Robert Carr's com- 



* This " old miU" is distinctly marlied on the map which forms one of the illus- 
trations to Valentine's Manual for 1863. It was on the shore of the East River, at 
tlic mouth of a brook running out of the "Kolek," or what is now vulgarly called 
"the Collect," and it was the nearest point to "the Ferry," at Brooklyn. See 
Valentine's Manuals, 1859, .5.51, and 1863, 621 ; Brodhead, I. 167, note. 

+ Alb. Rcc, XVIII. 325; Gen. Ent., I. 23-26, 30-33; Col. Doc, II. 250-253, 414, 
III. 103; Brodhead, I. 742, 762, 763; Hazard's Keg. Penn., IV. 43, 44; Appendix, 
note E. 

X Alb. Roc, XVIII. 32:^, 324; Col. Doc, II. 44.5, 446. 



Com MEM OK ATI VE On ATI ox. ' 37 

paiiies, marched into the Fort. Tlie English flag was run 
up ; the name of the Port was changed from Amsterdam 
to "James," and the City Avas ordered to he called "New 
York." A few weeks afterwards Fort Orange was sur- 
rendered, and became "Albany," in commemoration of 
the Scotch title of the Proprietor. Tlie conquered Prov- 
ince was named "New York." On Sunday, the second 
or twelfth of October, sixteen hundred and sixty -four, the 
Dutch Fort at Newcastle on the DelaArare was taken by 
the English, and the entire rt>duction of New Netherland 
was accomplished.* 

Brothers of the New York Historical Society : 
Thus ended, two hundred years ago, the dominion of 
Holland over the fairest portion of our continent. Nine 
years afterwards, that dominion was triumphantlj- recon- 
quered by the Dutch. But they held it only for a short 
period ; and its temporary repossession by them had no 
important influence on Colonial affairs. The three-colored 
ensign, t which for lialf a century had rightfully waved 
over New Netherland, Avas replaced by the "meteor 
flag;" and, from Virginia to New France, all European 
colonists were obliged to acknowledge Charles the Second 
as their King. His usurpation of New York decided the 
fortunes of North America. It jirepared the way for our 
national independence, and our federal Union. The his- 
tory of our own State centres upon it, as the most im- 
portant epoch in her colonial existence. Let us now 

* Alb. Rec, XVIII. 326; Col. Doc, II. 272, 415, 445, 502, 509, III. 67-73, 346; 
Thompson, II. 165; BrodUead, 1. 742-745; Val. Mau., 18B0, 593; Appeudix, Notes 
F. and G. 

t The Dutch national ensign was adopted about the year 1.583, just aftei- their 
Declaration of Independence, at the suggestion of William the Silent, Prince of 
Orange. It was composed of the Prince's colors — orange, white, and blue — 
arranged in three equal horizontal stripes. After the death of William the Second 
of Orange, in 16.50, the predominating influence of the Louvestein, or De Witt party 
caused a red stripe to be substituted for tlie ancient orange ; and the Dutcli flag at 
this day remains as it was thus modified two centuries ago: Brodhead, I. 19, note. 



38 Commemorative Ohation. 

contemplate some of the jjeculiar features and direct 
consequences of this momentous event. 

The conquest of New Netherland by the British sover- 
eign was an act of almost unparalleled national baseness. 
It was planned in secret, and was carried out in deliberate 
treachery towards a friendly government. Because Eng- 
land coveted New Netherland, and not because she had 
any just claim, she seized it as a prize. It was essential 
to the success of her colonial policy to secure that prize. 
The whole transaction was eminently characteristic of a 
selfish, insolent, and overbearing nation. On no other 
principli> than that which frequently afterwards stimu- 
lated the predatory aggressions of Great Britain in India 
and elsewhere, can her conquest of the Dutch- American 
Province be defended. In the utterance of this judgment, 
I trust that a descendant of one of the English conquerors 
of New York has not been moved by any uncandid senti- 
ments towards the birth-land of his ancestor. 

Yet, outrageous as was the deed, the temptation to com- 
mit it was irresistible. Its actual execution was only a 
question of time. Unjustifiable as it was, the usuri3ation 
of the English could not have been prevented, unless the 
Dutch Government were prepared to revei'se their pre- 
vious policy, and hold New Netherland at every hazard^ 
against the might of all enemies. The Province of Hol- 
land and the West India Company, alone, could not 
successfully oppose England. The General Government 
of tlie United Netherlands would not take the indispen- 
sable action, because they never rightly estimated the 
importance of their American colony, and felt no sufficient 
interest in its preservation. It was not until the last 
years of their rule, that they gave serious attention to the 
necessity of measures for its security. Even then^ they 
procrastinated when they should have acted. Tliis ap- 
parent indifference encouraged the monopolizing purposes 



Co MM EM RA TI VE OrA TIOX. 39 

of British colonial statesmanship ; and the Dutch trans- 
atlantic Province became an easy prey to undeclared foes, 
who skulked, like pirates in time of peace, into her chief 
harbor. War followed between the Netherlands and 
England ; but the captured prize Avas never restored. 
And so, New York replaced New Netherland on the 
map of the world. 

But, even if its importance had been adequately esti- 
mated in Holland, our State could not have remained 
much longer a Dutch Province. Its existence as such 
would soon have proved inconvenient to all parties. It 
was not insular, nor easy of defence. Its territory adjoined 
the colonial possessions of France, as well as of England ; 
and its inland frontier was not defined by natural bounda- 
ries. Sufficient measures for its protection against either 
of these powers would have required larger expenditures, 
on the part of the West India Company, than commercial 
thrift might have considered expedient. The States- 
General were less interested in its preservation than was 
the impoverished Corporation, wliich thought more of 
revenue than of patriotism. Moreover, the Federal Gov- 
ernment would soon have found that another European 
sovereign, besides Charles the Second, viewed with 
jealousy the existence of a Dutch Province in North 
America. If England liad not seized New Nethei'land 
when she did, France Avould almost certainly have taken 
and held it, not long afterwards, in the Second Dutch war 
of 1672 ; and would tlius have accomplished her long- 
cherished design of extending Canada, from Lake Cham- 
plain southward, through the Valley of the Hudson, to 
the ocean at Manhattan. And had Louis the Fourteenth 
succeeded in obtaining its possession, the subserviency of 
Charles and of James would doubtless have so confirmed 
the French poAver on this continent, that neitlier the con- 
quest of Canada by Great Britain, nor the American 



40 Commemohative OKArroN. 

Revolution, could have lia2)peued. Both these events 
depended on the fate of New Netherland. Even if the 
Province, after its reconquest in 1673, instead of being 
finally ceded to England by the Treaty of Westminster, in 
1674, had remained subject to Holland for fifteen years 
longer, until Englishmen called the Dutch Stadtholder to 
their throne, the crisis would then have come ; and our 
forefathers, following the fortunes of their chief, would 
have spontaneously proclaimed William the Third as their 
King, with acclamations as triumphant as when they first 
welcomed his short-lived colonial autliority with shouts 
of "OranjeBoven!"* 

The terms of capitulation which Nicolls offered, and 
Stuyvesant accepted, were, perhajis, the most favorable 
ever granted by a conqueror. In theory, the King "re- 
sumed his own." In fact, hi^ gained a foreign Province 
by a conquest, tlie effect of which Avas limited only by the 
Articles of Surrender. The clear policy of the Duke of 
York, as Proprietor, was to obtain peaceful possession of 
New Netlierland, and, at the same time, induce its Dutch 
inhabitants to remain and become loyal British subjects. 
His defective Patent, indeed, authorizi^d him to govern 
such subjects only. The Articles of Capitulation accord- 
\ng\y provided that tlie people of the Dutch Province 
were to (!ontinue free denizens of England. The most 

* The popular cry, " Ormije Boven," appears to have originated at Dordrcelit, in 
Holland, in 1672. The partisans of the Prince, and soon chosen Stadtholder, 
William the Third, who were the opponents of the Brothers De Witt, hoisted on 
the tower of that city an orange flag above a white Hag. On tlie orange flag was 
the inscription, in Dutch, 

*' Orttnje hofen, tie Wlttejl omler ; 
Die 7 aitdern meend. (lie slaat den Donder^ 
Or, in English: 

"Orange above, tlie Whites under; 

Wlio thinks not so. he struck by thunder." 

The Dutch word int means " white ;" hence (Ic Wittcn, or "the De Witts," signifies 
"the Whites." Basnage, Ann. Prov. Un., II. 284; Wagenaar, Vad. Hist, XIV. 
72, 16.5; Davies's Holland, III. 108. — New Netherland was reconquered by the 
Dutch, just after " Omiijo Bnivn" came in vogue. 



( 'OMMEMOUA TI VE Oil A TIOX. 41 

liberal offers, to coinMliate them, were made with ostenta- 
tions benevolence. It is not surprising that the Dutch 
colonists, chagrined at the seeming indifference of the 
authorities of their Fatherland, and liaving many causes 
of com})hiint against tlieir own Provincial Government, 
should have generally accepted this change of their rulers 
at least calmly and liopefully, if not with positive satis- 
faction.* 

Tliere was, at all events, one point on which there was 
almost uniA'ersal acquiescence. As a choice of evils, the 
Dutch inhabitants of New Netherland were far more con- 
tent with becoming subject directly to the King of Eng- 
land and the Duke of York, than they would have been 
with the mastery of those Eastern neighbors, who had 
so long, but so vainl_y, coveted the possession of their 
Province. This feeling we have observed strongly ex- 
hibited in the very agony of the surrender. It was a 
natural feeling. The early colonists of our State had Init 
little liking for most of the emigrants to Xew England, or 
their characteristics. If they sympathized with imy of 
them, it was chiefly with the ])eople of tolerant Rhode 
Island. The genial English cavalier was much nearer the 
Hollander's heart than was the ascetic English Puritan, 
who wonld not be comforted in his exile by the calm 
pleasures of a Leyden Sunday. Across the Atlantic, local 
circumstances jjroduced deeper repugnance. New York 
and Massachusetts — rivals and antagonists nearly from the 
start — were colonized liy men not only of different races, 

* In October, HJtU, a fuw weeks after the surrender, Governor NieoUe required all 
the Dutch inhabitants to talcc au oath of allegiance to the King, and of obedience 
to the Dulie of York and his officers, as long as they should live in any of his 
Majesty's territories. Tlie leading burghers of New York, however — fearing that 
the proposed oath might "nullify or render void" tlie Articles of Capitulation — 
declined to swear it, until the Governor formally declared " that the Articles of Sur- 
render arc not in the least broken, or intended to be broken, by any words or ex- 
l>ressiona in the said oath." This removed every doubt, and allegiance was cordially 
sworn.— Gen. Ent., I. 49, M; New Amst. Rec, V.614-B18; Val. Man. lS01,(;(l.5-ti07; 
Col. Doc., III. 74-77. 

6 



42 Commemorative Ouatiox. 

but of essentially opposite ideas. The cardinal principle 
of the one was comprehensive liberality ; the systematic 
policy of the other was Procrustean rigor. There never 
Avas a greater contrast in the civilized peoples of the earth. 
Thus it happened that there was almost constant enmity 
between the Dutch Province and her Pui'itan neighbors. 
This early antipath^y was, doubtless, largely increased by 
those territorial encroacliments which were so offensively 
pushed on from the East. Yet the contrariety survived 
long after the question of boundaiies was settled. It 
continued to manifest itself most conspicuously, in wliat 
frequently apjDeared to be a meddlesome and callous 
obtrusiveness on the one side, which was met, on the 
other, by the decorous reserve which the rules of good 
society promote. In the end, it Avas well that such char- 
acteristic differences existed. With more intimate associa- 
tion, each rival race learned to respect and to value the 
excellencies which distinguished the other. Narrow pro- 
vincialism grew more magnanimous Avith larger observa- 
tion ; and Avliile but feAV Avere found Avilling to abandon 
the valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk, croAvds 
pressed from NeAV England, in later years, to irresistibly 
attractive homes in NeAV York — none the less gladly be- 
cause of the unjealous greeting Avhich welcomed their 
approach. The acute ingenuity, anxious energj^, and 
austere A'irtues, Avhich Avere thus conti'ibuted by its immi- 
grants from the East, blended admirably Avith the steady 
industry, quiet conservatism, and grand comprehensive- 
ness, Avhich always marked the pioneers of our own 
State ; and the combination has yielded results of magnifi- 
cent prosperity, Avhicli God grant may be perpetual ! 

It was for the true interest of America that Ncav York 
was founded by the Batavian race. That founding pro- 
duced our OAvn magnanimous and cosmopolitan State, the 
influence of AA'hich on our nation has always been so happ}' 



Commemorative Oration. A'.\ 

and so healthful. Pi'ovidence never meant our variegated 
country to be the antitype of a single European sover- 
eignty. There probably never was a population more 
homogeneous than that of New England in its early days. 
Of the twenty thousand persons who, at the end of twenty 
years after the iirst settlement at New Plymouth, formed 
its several colonies, nearly all were English emigrants, 
and most of them were Puritans. For more than a 
century their descendants lived and multiplied, a distinct 
people, secluded from other communities in a very re- 
markable degree. This seclusion generated or stimulated 
vehemently dogmatic individualism. It helped, very 
powerfully, to produce what is sometimes called the "in- 
tense subjectivity" of the New England mind. The re- 
sult was legitimate. The British Puritan loved true liberty 
less than he loved dominion. He wished always to do 
what pleased himself ; but he longed, still more, to com- 
pel all others to do as he pleased. He was uneasy unless 
he could domineer. This tyrannical and unscrupulous, 
but thoroughly English spirit was not softened by its 
transplantation in America. It seems, on the contrary, to 
have grown more rank, and to have developed peculiar 
social characteristics, in the secluded New England colo- 
nies. Of these characteristics, none was more remarkable 
than the system of "mutual inspection," which, pushed 
to its extreme limits, would subject all to a discijjline as 
galling as it is unwholesome and dwarfing. " The Inqui- 
sition," writes one of Massachusetts' most honored sons, 
" existed in substance, with a full share of its terrors and 
its violence. " * It is obvious that liberality, magnanimity, 
and comprehensiveness, could notHourish among a people 
so isolated, and so incessantly occupied in brooding over, 
and working out within itself, its own problems. Yet, I 
would be tlie last to withhold an expression of sincere 

* Story's Miscellanies, 66 ; Colt's Puritanism, 21S; Brodlicad, I, 20S. 3.S1. 



44 Commemorative Ouatiox 

respect, justly due to the many ^^t(■l•lillg• qualities which 
illustrate that renowned stock, tht^ descendants of which 
have exerted so wide and so marked an iniluence through- 
out our whole country. 

When he emigrated, however, the New Englander did 
not readily lay aside his native peculiarities. He yearned, 
to pro])agate unnu)ditied his ingi-ained ])rovincialisni. But 
tliis he co\dd not do in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of 
New York. Tliat he could not, was happy for our 
country. It was nf)t her cramped destin}^ to jierpetuate 
or reproduce the id<"as or the j)olicy of only one of the 
nationalities of the Old ^^'orld, or of but one of its planta- 
tions in the New. The ai'rogant claim — so flattering to 
British ])ride, so sycophantic in Americans who would 
flatter Kngland — that the United States of America are of 
wholly Anglo-Saxon origin, is as fallacious as it is vulgar. 
" Time's noblest oftspring" was not the child of England 
alone. There was a Fatherland, as fruitful as the Mother- 
land. There were many parents of our multigenerous 
people. The great modern Republic sprang from a union 
of races as varioiis and contrasted as the climates from 
which, and to which, they emigrated. SAveden, Holland, 
Germany, Savoy, S2:)ain, France, Scotland, and Ireland, 
all co-operated, no less mightily than England, in peopling 
our territoiy, moulding our institutions, and creating our 
vast and diversifled country, "one and indivisible." To 
its heterogeneousness, and not to its supposed homogene- 
ousness — to its collisions and its comminglings of races — 
to its compromises and its concessions — does that country 
owe its grandest moi'al, social, and political character- 
istics. 

.Vmong these various races, the Batavian founders of 
New York marked their impress deep upon their State 
and upon the confederated nation. Tiie motives to their 
emigration were ditt'erent from those which led to the 



CoMMEMOriATIVE ORATION. 45 

colonization of other American territories. They had 
sutfered uo persecution in their tolerant Fatherland. They 
left its shores not as refugees, but as volunteers— not to 
seek "Freedom to Ayorship God" for themselves, and 
deny it to others— not to establish inquisitorial dogmatism, 
but to live, and let others live, in comfort. "Not as 
the conqn(>ror comes," came the unaggressive forefathers 
of our State. The plain-spoken and earnest, yet unpre- 
sumptuous men who tirst explored and reclaimed New 
Netlierland, and bore the flag of Holland to the cabins of 
the Iroquois, crossed the ocean to better their condition, 
and add another far-off Province to the Dutch RepubUc. 
They remembered, Avith deep affection, the great history 
of the little country they had left ; and with their house- 
hold gods, they carried 

" The wreaths anil reHcs of the immortal fire."* 

They hoped, perhaps, that in time they might rear, among 
the rocks, and the maples, and the pine-trees on the banks 
of the River of the Mountains, "the Exchange of a 
wealthier Amsterdam, and the schools of a more learned 
Leyden."t They gave to their new abodes among the 
red men of the forest, the names which they had loved in 
their distant Belgian homes. Born in that "hollow land," 
rescued from the sea, where the first lessons of childhood 
taught them self-reliance and industry, they brought over 
into the wilderness those thrifty national habits which 
soon made it to bloom and blossom as the rose. Longer 
lines of barges than ever crowded the Batavian canals, 
are now drawn through those magnificent channels from 
the lakes to the ocean, which the experience of Holland 
suggested, and the enterprise of her sons helped to con- 
stract. Distinguished by that modesty which generally 
accompanies merit, the Dutch pioneers of New York 

* Drydeii's ^neid, U. + Macanlay, I. 219. 



46 CuMMEMORATlVE Oj;ATI0S'. 

made no loud- sounding pretensions to grandeur in pur- 
pose, superiority in cliaracter, or eminence in holiness. 
They were the very opposites of the Pharisees of ancient 
or of modern times. They were more ready to do than 
to boast ; and their descendants have never been am- 
bitious to arrogate and approijriate excessive praise for 
what their forefathers did in extending the limits of 
Chiistendom, and in stamping on North America its re- 
splendent features of freedom of religion and liberality in 
political faith. With the magnanimous ideas, and honest 
maxims, and homely virtues of their Fatherland, they 
transplanted her national Church and her public Schools, 
her accomplished "Domines" and her Avell-educated 
Schoolmasters. The huge clasped Billies, issued from lier 
proverbially elegant press, were preserved as venerable 
heir-looms in their families. The system of free public 
or common Scliools — in which New England takes no less 
I^ride than New York — was borrowed, or imitated, from 
the Dutch Rei^ublic, where the exiled Puritans saw it for 
the first time in successful operation, through the influence 
of her Calvinistic national Chiirch.* The holidays of the 
Netherlands, observed by us here to this day, reneAV the 
genial and hallowed anniversaries of "Paas" and " Saint 
Nicholas ;" while, year by year, the people of New York 
are invited to render thanks to God, as their forefathers 
were invited to keep "Thanksgiving Day" in Holland, 
long before Manhattan was known, and while New 
England was yet "u rocky desart."t Those forefathers 
fearlessly deposed the King of Spain, while they humbly 
worshij^ped the King of kings. The children of such 
ancestors added no weak ingredient to the blended masses 
of our Union ! 

Yet while Hollanders formed the chief element in iu-r 

* Duvies's Holland, II. 303, 303; Bor., XX. 673; Brodhead, I. 403, 403. 

+ Smith's New England; Pinkerton, XIII. 306; Brodhead, I. 41, 04, 443, 747. 



COMMEMOIiA ri VE OliA TION. 47 

population, New Nethei'land enjoj^ed the advantage of a 
happy intermixture of other European races. Her first 
settlers, imbued with the liberal sentiments of their ances- 
tral land, viewed free navigation and free trade as the sol- 
vent of national antipathies. Accordingly, without re- 
garding diversities in doctrine or lineage, they made the 
hearth-stone the test of citizenship, and residence and 
loyalty the only obligations of the multifarious nationali- 
ties Avhich soon came to nestle among them. Walloons 
from Flanders, Huguenots and Waldenses from France 
and Savoy, Swedes, German Lutherans, wandering Israel- 
ites, Roman Catholics, Anabaptists, and English Quakers, 
all planted themselves, more or less quietlJ^ beside the 
natives of Calvinistic Holland. Marv ell's Lines on Old 
Amsterdam might almost describe her trans-Atlantic child, 
which with 

"Christian, Pagan, Jew, 
Staple of 6ects and mint of scliism grew; 
That hank of conscience, where not one so strange 
Opinion, but finds credit and exchange. 
In vain for Catliolics ourselves we bear; 
The universal churcli is only there." 

As early as 1643, the Jesuit Father Jogues — that illus- 
trious apostle who consecrated with his life the " Mission 
of the Martyrs" among the Mohawks at Caghnawaga* — 
found that eighteen ditferent languages Avere spoken in 
New Amsterdam. There was always popular freedom 
and public spiiit enough in tlie Dutch Province to attract 
voluntary emigrants from tlie neigliboring British Colo- 
nies. If the Fatherland gave asj'lum to self-exiled Eng- 
lish Puritans, New Netherland as libei-ally sheltered refu- 
gees from the intolerant governments on her eastern 

* The Indian word " Caghnawaga" means " the Rapids," or "a carrying-place ;" 
Col. Doc, III. 2.50, jio/p; General Index, 283; Shea's Catholic Missions, 304; N. Y. 
H. S. Coll., III. (II.) 171; Brodhcad, I. -133, CoH. I cannot refrain from protesting 
against tlie liideoiis want of taste whicli has belittled this sonorous, signilicant, and 
historical name into " Fonda!" 



48 Co MM EM 1! A TJ V E Oil A TION. 

frontier. Her magnificent destiny, foretold in Holland,* 
began to be accomplished, when numbers, looking to her 
with eager eyes, were allured to embark for her shore. 
Far across the sea came crowded ships from Scotland, and 
Finance, and Ireland ; while from the upper waters of the 
Rhine flocked multitndes of a kindred race to those at its 
mouth, who first chose Manhattan as their home. Here, 
on our own rocky island — the Tyre of the New World — 
where Dutch sagacity, integrity, liberality, and industry 
laid the foundations — Saxon and Celt, Fi-enchman and 
German, Jew and Grentile, Northerner and Soutlierner — 
men of all races, and tongues, and climes, and creeds, 
have worked together to bnild up the golden throne of 
Commerce. New Amsterdam Avas but the miniature of 
New Netherland, and the prototj'pe of cosmojiolitan New 
York. And so, with large and comprehensivt^ spirit, our 
Dutch forefathers established the grandeur of that imperial 
State whose 

"Far-off comiiiE; slioue."t 

But if it was for the true interest of America that New 
York shoiild be founded by Holland, it was equallj' for 
the greatest good of the greatest number that she should 
be acquired by England. She could not long have re- 
mained an isolated dependency of the Diitcli Ecpublic. 
The time Avas not yet at hand for her own State Indepen- 
dence. Nor was it the purpose of Providence that New 
Netherland should ever become a separate American Sov- 
ereignty. Her central and commanding position, her pic- 
turesqueneSs, variety, and universality, all foi-eshadowed 
her grand destiny — forever to bind together the Noi-fh and 
the South, and to unite with the Ocean the Lakes and the 
Prairies of a future vast and undivided country. To 

* Ante, page 17. 

t The Arms of the State of New York, adopted in 1778, represent the Sun rising- 
over distant mountain-tops, and her siguilleant motto is "Excelsior." 



CuMMEMORATlVE UHATIOX. 4!) 

that wise end, lier foluuial allegiance was deter- 
mined. If, instead of becoming the connecting link 
between the British American Plantations, our State 
had been annexed to Canada by Louis the Fourteenth, 
the Iroquois would have been rapidl}^ extermina- 
ted ; the dominion of France on this continent would have 
grown impregnable; no Wolfe would have scaled the 
heights of Abraham ; and no such Revolution could have 
happened as that which produced our nation. New 
France, including the Valleys of the Ohio and tlie Mis- 
sissippi, might yet have possessed her "broad-anned 
ports" at Quebec. Manhattan, and New Orleans ; and a 
Bourbon miglit still have dated the instructions of his 
Vice-Roy at Versailles. Instead of Canada and Nova 
Scotia, New England and Virginia, deprived of the sym- 
pathy of New York, might perhaps, at this moment, have 
been receiving orders from Whitehall. But the con- 
jirmation of British supremacy in New Netherland Avas 
the augury of our national independence. The Father- 
land had done all tliat tlie wisdom of the Almighty had 
given her to do in the work of American colonization. 
Thenceforward, her trans-Atlantic offspring was to become 
the ward of a severer guardian, whose fate it was — like 
that of Spain — to educate a new Republic of Fnited 
States. This glorious consummation could not have be- 
gun, nor have been so wisely accomplished, if NeAV York 
had not suffered in common with other colonies under the 
oppression which produced unanimous revolt ; and if she 
hatl not tauglit her Confederates some of those exalting 
principles of political and religious liberality, which, pre- 
serving her through long generations untainted by fanati- 
cism, have made her the majestic monument of her 
Batavian founders. 

With the supremacy of England came a necessary 
change in the language, the laws, and the institutions of 
7 



."id Com M KM (I I! ATI VI-: (Ihmiox. 

NeAV York. Tliis cliaugc, however, was very gradual. 
The Articles of Capitulation happily restrained what other- 
wise might have been an insufferable exercise of the con- 
queror's jjower. CTuaraiiteed their own religious worship 
and church discipline, tlie Dutcli, in due time, cordially 
welcomed the Service of the Church of England.* Free- 
dom of conscience was foi-ever secured by the influence of 
the ancient Reformed Dutch Church, which effectually 
prevented the (>stablisliriient of any one denomination as 
"The Church" of the Province. The Episcopal connnu- 
nion, although fostered by the servants of the Crown, 
never became her predominating sect.f This was owing, 
in a great degree, to the high j)ersonal and scholarly 
standing of the Dutch clergymen, of whom a regular suc- 
cession, educated and ordained in Holland, continued to 
be sent over until 1772, when the ecclesiastical authoT'ity 
of the Classis of Amsterdam ceased.:): The cosmopolitan 
character of New York was but made more permanent by 
the bloodless revolution, which, preserving the old, in- 
fused fresh elements among the original staples of her 
greatness. Relieved from the anxiety that for some time 
had been oppressing tliem, her people, as they grew in 



* The Charter of Trinity Churcli could hardly have passed Fletcher's Council on 
the tith of May, Ki'.lT, without tlic friendship of its Dntch nieniliers, Pliiilipse, Van 
Cortlandt, and Bayard; Council Minutes, VII. 330; Doc. Hist. N. Y., III. 31il. 

t Tlie Colonial act of 22 Septeniher, 1693, was passed by an Assembly in which 
there was only one Episcopalian, and which never thought of cstablishins that 
denomination as the Provineiiil Church. In poiut of fact tlie Episcopal Church 
never was cstablislied, except in some of the Southern counties of the Pi-ovincc. 
See Col. Doc., V. 321, 323; Doe. Hist., III. l.iO, 1.51; Smith's New York, I. 131, 
134, 187, 337, 330, II. 234; Sedgwielc's Life of Livingston, 7f<, 88; Force's Tracts, 
IV. (IV.) 3, 3.5, 40, .52. 

\ See Verplanck. in N. Y. II. S. Collections, III. 89; Gunn's Memoirs of the 
Reverend Jolm H. Livingston, D. D., 141, 143 (Ed. 1856.) Demarest, iuhis " History 
and (.'haracteristies of tlic Reformed Protestant Dutch Church," p. 96, remarks tliat 
"She, of all Churclies in the land, was least able to succeed without an educated 
ministry, for she had been always taught to consider thi.s as essential. It was 
re(iuired by the Articles of Union, that provision should be made for it. Moreover, 
tlie Cluireh in Holland would not consent to tlie independeuee of the Amei-ican 
Churches until this liad lieen guaranteed." 



COilMEMOUATIVF. OUATION. ol 

prosperity, remembered with fading regret the event, 
which, althougli it severed them politically from Holland, 
conld never take from them tlie heritage of her virtues, 
her teachings, and her histoi'ical renown. 

By becoming British subjects, the inhabitants of New 
Netherland did not, however, gain civil freedom. New 
names, they found, did not secure new liberties. "Am- 
sterdam" was changed to York, and "Orange" to Al- 
bany. But these changes only commemorated the titles 
of a conquert)r. Stuyvesant, and the AVest India Com- 
pany, and a republi(\rn sovereignty, were exclianged for 
NicoUs, and a Royal Proprietor, and an hereditary Kiiig. 
The Province was not represented in Parliament ; nor 
could her voice reach the chapel of Saint Stephen at West- 
minster, as readily as it had penetrated tlie chambers of 
the Binnenhof at the Hague. It was nearly tAventy years 
before her Ducal Proprietor allowed, for a short time, to 
the people of New York even that faint degree of repre- 
sentative government which they had enjoyed when the 
three-colored ensign of Holland was hauled down from the 
flag-statf of Fort Amsterdam. Not until the authority of 
the British Crown was shaken, did New York become 
again as really free as New Nethei'land liad been. 

Th(n'e was one remarkable feature in which our State 
ditfered from every other British- American dependency. 
A conquest from Holland, she became for twenty-one 
years a Pi'oprietary Dukedom, and then, for nearlj- a cen- 
tury, she remained a Royal Province. Witliovit a char- 
ter, like those of Maryland or Pennsylvania, New York 
resembled none of the New England colonies, except, per- 
haps, New Hampsliire. It was not until after the acces- 
sion of the Dutch Stadtholder to the English throne, that 
she permanently obtained the i)rivilege of an Assembly 
elected by her freeholdei's. Even then, her Governor and 
her Counsellors were appointed directly by the King. 



52 Co MM EM or; ATI YE OEATiny. 

'PI lis circiimstancc, in connection with othci's peculiar to 
lier original colonization, fastened upon Ni>w York a dis- 
tinctive quality of sociid aristocracy, which survived the 
period of her Independence. It Avas perhaps owing to 
these causes, that so few comparatively of her Puritan 
neighbors came to add to her colonial jiopulation. New 
England and the north of Ireland contributed, at one 
time, considerable numbers. But her largest accessions of 
emigrants, during tlie reigns of William, Anne, and the 
Georges, besides Englishnu>n and Ilollandei's, wei'e French 
Huguenots and German (Jalvinists and Lutherans. Most 
of the latter were refugees from the Palatinate, Avho set- 
tlt^d themselves on the Hudson and the MohaAvk Rivers. 
West of Herkimer, th(> country was possessed by the Iro- 
quois ; and it was not until long after our State Constitu- 
tion was formed at Kingston, in 1777, that emigrants from 
New England ventured to push beyond the German Flats, 
and occvipy the rich pasturt^s of Onondaga and the Gen- 
esee. North of the laorth line of Massachusetts, New 
York remained for many years the true owner of the 
region west of the Connecticut, and she thus became the 
mother of the present State of Vermont. Her original 
territory, as defined by the Dutch Government in 1614, 
was so partitioned, in the progress of events, as to form the 
several States of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Little did the 
quiet men who, in the Binnenhof at the Hague, first placed 
the name of New Netiierland on the map of the world, 
anticipate that it would become the parent of such a noble 



es 



progeny of sovereignti 

To all the changes which followed its conquest, the 
Dutch colonists of our State submitted with characteristic 
good faith. A few, who could not bear the separation, 
returned to end their days in their Fatherland. But 



COMMEMOHATIYE OliATIOX. 53 

Stu_yvesant, with the Dutt-h clergy and most of the colo- 
nial officers, honestly swore allegiance to the King and 
to the Duke, and remained faithful as long as English 
supremacy lasted.* No more loyal subjects tlian they 
were ever brought under the British crown. Yet it was 
no pleasant thing for them to watch the Red Cross of Eng- 
land waving where the emblems of the Netherlands had 
floated for fifty years. To Holland thej- felt a deep, unal- 
terable, hereditary attachment. Nor has the whirligig of 
time extinguished this sentiment in their descendants. 
Two centuries have scarcely weakened tlie veneration 
which citizens of New York of Dutch lineage proudly 
cherish towards the birth-land of their ancestors. Year 
by year, the glorious and the genial memories of Holland 
are renewed by those whom long generations divide from 
the country of their forefathers. But it is generally true, 
that Colonists retain more affection towards their Father- 
land than those who remain at home ever feel toward the 
emigrants who leave its shores. As years roll on, the 
contrast becomes more marked. Two centuries have 
almost wiped out of the recollection of Holland the once 
familiar name of New Netherland. A few of tlie more 
curious of her scholars and her statesmen may now and 
then, by careful search, discover the meagre paragraplis 
in which her ponderous histories dismiss the story of her 
ancient trans-Atlantic Province. The most complete 
sejiarate sketch of it in the Dutch language is tlie work of 
a Zealander,t which, though wiitteu not many years 
ago, is already a literary rarity. But the people of the 
Low Countries scarcely know that New York was once 
their own New Netherland, or that they have any right 
to the glory of having laid the foundations of the might- 
iest State in the American Union, and the metropolis of the 
Western world ! 

* See ante, p. 41, rinte. + N. C. Lambivclitson, (if MicldL'lbure;. 



M COilMEMOnATJVK Oh'ATrON. 

While it is thus to be regretted that th(! history of New 
Netherland shoukl be so little known in HoUand, it is still 
more discreditable that, until recently, it continued to be 
as little understood, and perliaps even less appreciated, in 
America. There is no State in our Union which has better 
reason to be proiid of its annals than New York. Yet of 
no State were the beginnings left for generations in gn^ater 
obscurity. Official records and original accounts by con- 
temj)orary writers have never, indeed, been wanting. But 
these were generally like sealed books, written in the ver- 
nacidar — almost uidvuown to Englishmen — of "William the 
Silent, and Grotius, and Barne veldt. The only colonial 
historian of New York, after its conquest, was a Royalist 
of English descent.* His meagre outline of its first half- 
century seems to have encoui'aged a former Chancellor of 
our own State incautiously to tell us, thirty-six years ago, 
that the annals of its Dutch period "are of a tame and 
pacific character, and generally dry and uninteresting. "f 
Tlit^ remark might have been someAvhat just, if it had been 
applied — not to their quality, but — to tlie disgracefully 
neglected condition in which our earliest archives were 
formerly suffered to remain.:}: If tlie sources of history 
were thus sealed, it is not surprising that History herself 
should have been silent. Lil\^e the many brave men who 
died before Agamemnon, the modest founders of New 
York for a long time slept, 

"Unwept, unknown: 
No bard had they to make all time their own."§ 

Tliis is doubtless owing, in some degree, to ignorance 

* William Smith, who died in 1793, Clnef-Justiee of Canada. 

tChaneellor Kent, in N. T. H. S. Coll., (U.) I. 13. 

X I avail myself of this opportunity to express gratitieation that Dr. E. B. 
O'CalUiLChan has been, of late years, in charge of tlie Historical Records of our 
State at Albany. He is one of the very few who are fitted for the peculiar oHiec 
of Archivist; and it would be a calamity if the public should be deprived of 
the advantage of his services. 

*; Francis's Translation of Horace's Odes, IV. 1*. 



COMMEMUliATJ V1-: (_>HATION. 55 

of the Diitcli language, which few English or American 
authors have ever attempted to master. But it is still more 
owing to an inherited or inutative spirit -of supercilious 
depreciation of every tiling Dutch, which, with some bril- 
liant exceptions, seems to have infected so many Avriters 
in our own country, especially those of New England.* It 
is the good fortune of that section of our land to possess 
abundant easily read records of the deeds and virtues of 
her founders ; and it is greatly to her comfort that so many 
of her children have done their best to extol her glory and 
spread abroad her fame. Yet, while a monotonous repe- 
tition of indiscriminating panegyric may gratify its sub- 
jects, it does not always enlarge human knowledge. It 
may well be questioned whether zeal has not run into 
injustice, and whether, while incessantly magnifying the 
praise of one portion of our Union, a candid acknowledg- 
ment of the merits of others has not been systematically 
slumned. The Tacitus of our country, in the grandeur of 
his comprehensive genius, has not failed to do eloquent 
justice to the honest memories of New York, his chosen 
home. But too many of our approved authorities and 
school-books, professing to teach American history, seem 
as if they were carefully calculated for a provincial meri- 
dian, and cunningly manufactured to inculcate only ac- 
counts of New England. The beginnings of the Empire 
State are passed ignorantly by ; or, if tliey are alluded to, 
it is too often in niggard or reluctant words, unworthy of 
any scholar who ventures to relate our country's story. 
The patriotic calendar of America has pertinaciously can- 
onized the little company which landed on Plj'mouth 
beach ; while it has jealously suppressed a just reference to 

* Everett and Bancroft are national jewels. Motley has done immortal honor 
to New England and to himself hy his admirable Duteh histories. Not less 
worthily has TucUerman, in his "Optimist," and his ''Biographieal Essays,'^ 
shown that just appreciation of New York and her characteristics which a scholar 
of his fine taste and eultivatiou could not help exhibiting. 



56 CtLMMF.MOUATIVK Oil ATI UX. 

the })r()g(Miy of those who, long before tliey slielteied tliiit 
Pilgrim band at Lej'den, had showed the world how to 
depose a King and declare a People free and independent. 

The retirement of Holland from an unequal strife, left 
France and Spain to contend with England for colonial 
supremacy in North America. ^listress of all the Atlantic 
coast betwet^n Nova Scotia and Florida, the i^ower which 
had conquered New York soon aspired to uncontrolled 
dominion from sea to sea. The acquisition of New Nether- 
land, which had formerly kept Virginia apart from New 
England, gave to the British Crown the mastery of the 
most advantageous position on our Continent, whence it 
could at pleasure direct movements against any Colony 
that might attemjit a premature independence. With 
short-sighted triumpli, England rejoiced that her authority 
was dotted on a new spot in the map of the wt>rld. But 
her pride went before her destruction, and her haughty 
spirit prepared the way for her terrible humiliation. The 
American Republic was ftishioned in the first Congress of 
1765, which met at NeAV York. It was a most significant, 
but only a just decree of Providence, that the retribution 
of England sliould begin with the very Province which 
she had so iniquitously ravished from Holland, to set, as 
her most splendid jewel, in the diadem of her colonial 
sovereignty ! 

Yet for a long time the Plantations which had thus be- 
come geographically united were neither homogeneous nor 
sympathetic ; and they never were actually consolidated. 
While New England, Maryland, and A'irginia were radi- 
cally Anglo-Saxon Colonies, the mass of the population of 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, 
which had formed the later territory of New Netherland, 
was, as we have seen, made up of Hollanders, Huguenots, 
Waldenses, Germans, Frenchmen, Swedes, Scotchnien. 



l'oMMh:M(-iir\rivE ()!!.\rioy. 57 

and Irishriien. A siinilar want of liomogeneousness 
characterized some of the more Soutliern Cok)nies. Among 
these raanifokl nationalities, ideas and motives of action 
Avere as various and discordant as the differing dialects 
which were uttered. In the progress of years, a common 
allegiance and common dangers produced a greater sym- 
pathy among the English Plantations in North America. 

Nevertheless, while she formed a part of the British 
Colonial Empire, New York never lost her original social 
identity nor her peculiar political influence. Her moral 
power lasted throughout the whole succession of events 
which culminated in the American Revolution. It is im- 
possible for me now to attempt a fitting historical review 
of this demonstrable truth. It is enough to say that, if 
the legitimate influence of New York has not heretofore 
been always Avorthily acknowledged, it has never been 
openly denied. Nor has lier salutary moial ])ower ever 
ceased. The history of her Fatherland — besides the 
idea of toleration of opinion — furnished the example of 
the Confederation of Free and Independent States, and 
made familiar the most instructive lessons of Constitu- 
ti(jnal administration. AVhile that history taught tiie 
sacred right of revolt against the tyranny of an hereditary 
King, it enforced the no less sacred duty of faithfulness 
to deliberate obligations, and loj'alty to the General Gov- 
ernment founded by the solemn compact of Sovereign but 
United States. The patriots who deposed Philip the 
Second were the great originals of those who in the next 
century dethroned Charles the First, and in tlie century 
following rejected George the Tliiid. From Holland came 
William, "the Deliverer" of England from the tyrant 
James. The Declaration of the Independence of the 
United Provinces of the Netherlands was the glorious 
model of the English Declaration of Right, and of the 
grander Declaration of the Indc^pendence of tlie I'nited 



58 COMMEMOh'AT/VE ORATION. 

(Joloiiii's of North Aineiit-a. The l^iiioii of Utrecht was 
the nohle exemplar of the Phihidelpliia Articles of Con- 
federation. Tlie Dutch motto, "Ekxdkagt maakt 
magt" — Uii'dy iiiaJii'S ih'kjIiI — suggested our own "E 
Pluribus Unum." 

All these teachings of Dutch history are the peculiar 
heritage of our o\s\\ Empire State. It was the proud des- 
tiny of New York to temper the narrow and sometimes 
fanatical characteristics of h(>r English sister Plantations 
with the larger- and more conservative principles which 
she had herself derived from Holland. It was her lot to 
sustain more severe trials, and gain a more varied expe- 
rience, than an}^ other American Colony. Midway be- 
tween the Saint Lawrence and the Chesapeake, she stood, 
for almost a century, guarding her long frontier against 
the enuiit}' and might of New France. And Avhen at 
last the Conquest of Canada tilled the measure of British 
aggression, and pampered still more the British lust of 
power, the augury of two hundred years ago was fulfilled, 
and Nkw Youk — Avorthy to he distinguished as The 
Netheklaxd of Ameuica — hecame the Pivot Province, 
on Avhich hinged the most important movements of that 
sublime revolt against the oppression of England, the 
only i«irallel to which was the triumphant struggle that 
the forefatheis of her first settlers maintained against the 
gigantic despotism of Spain 1 



A P r E N D T X . 



NOTE A. 

Translation of the first New Netheeland Charter, granted hj tlie 
States General, on 11 October, 1614;— from Mr. Brodhead's 
Address before tlie N. Y. llistorical Society, 20 November, 
1844, p. 5:^ and from the New York Colonial Documents, volume 
I. pages 10-1-'. 

SATtRDAY, the Eleventh of October, IfiH. 

Present — The President, Mr. Giuesskx. 

Messrs. BiESMAX, Wksteriioi.t, Brienex, Oi.denBarsevei.t, Berckenrode, 

DiiiEi., Teyi.ixuex, MA(ixrs, MoEsnERiiEN. .\yloa, Hegemans. 

THE STATES-GENEKAL ok tmh UxrrEii Xktheri.anus to all to 
whom these presents shall eonie. Greeting : Whereas Gerrit Jaoobz Witssen, 
ancient Burgomaster ot the City of Amsterdam, .lonas Witssen aTid Simon 
Monissen, owners of the ship named the Litt/c Fox, whereof Jan de With 
was schipper ; Hans Hongers, Panhis Pelgroin, and Lambrecht van Tween- 
huvsen, owners of the two ships named the Tiiji'i- and the Fortune, whereof 
Adriaen Block and Henrick Corstiaenssen were schipi)ers; ArnoU van 
Leybergen. Wessel Schenck, Hans Claessen. and Berent Sweertsen, owners 
of the ship named tlie XiijhtitKjiih, \vhereof Tbys Volckertssen w.as schip- 
per, merchants of the aforesaid t'ity Amsterdam ; and Pieter t'lementssen^ 
Bronwer, .Jau Clementsseii Kics, and Cornclis Volckertssen, merchants of 
the City of Iloorn, owners of the ship named the FortHijn, whereof Corne- 
lls Jacobssen May was schipper. All now associated in one Company, Have 
respectfully represented unto Us, that they the Petitioners, after heavy 
expenses and great damages to themselves by loss of shi])S and other 
dangers, had, during the present cnrrent year, discovered and f lund, with 
the al)Ove-nanied five shii)S, certain New Lands, lying in America, between 
Keir Frtntec and Vhyhiin, the .sea-coasts wherenf lie between Forty and 
rorty-tive degrees of latitude, and now called Xew Netukulaxd: And 
Whereas We did, in the month ot March last, for the promotion and increase 



60 < '<' .1/ .1/ KM (I li A TiVE Oj;a r/ o x. 

of Commerce, cause to be piiblislieJ a certain General Consent and Cliarter, 
setting fortli that wliosoever should tlioreafter discover new havens, lands, 
places, or passages, might frequent, or cause to be frequented, for four 
voyages, such newly-discovered and found places, passages, havens, or 
lands, to the exclusion of all others from visiting or frequenting the same 
from I lie United Netherlands, until the suid first discoverers and tinders, 
shall themselves have completed tlie said four voyages, or caused the same 
to be done within the time prescribed f )r that purpose, under tlie penalties 
expressed in the said Charter,* <Scc., They pray that We would accord to 
tliem a proper Act to be passed in form, in pursuance of the aforesaid 
Charter; Which being considered, and WE having, in Our Assembly, heard 
the pertinent Report of the Petitioners relative to the discovery and finding 
of the said Xew Countries between the above-named limits and degrees, 
and also of their adventures. Have Consented and Granted, and by these 
presents Do consent and Grant, to the said petitioners, now united into 
One Company, tiiat they shall be privileged exclusively to frequent or 
cause to be visited the above Newly-discovered Lands, situate in America, 
between yew France and Virginin. wliereof the sea-coasts lie between the 
Fortieth and the Forty-fifth degrees of latitude, now named New Netiier- 
LAND (as can be seen by a Figurative Map hereunto annexedt), and that 
for four voyages within the term of Three Years, commencing tlie First of 
January Sixteen Hundred and Fifteen, next ensuing or sooner; without it 
being permitted to any other person from the United Netherlands to sail 
to, navigate, or frequent the said newly-discovered lands, havens, or places, 
either directly or indirectly, within the said three years, on pain of Confis- 
cation of the vessel and cargo wherewith infraction hereof shall be at- 
tempted, and a fine of Fifty Thousand Netherland Ducats, for the benefit of 
the aforesaid discoverers or finders: — Provided, Nevertheless, that by these 
presents We do not intend to prejudice or diminish any of Our former 
Grants or Charters ; And it is also Our intention that if any dispute; or 
difi'erences arise f'roio these Our Concessions, they shall be decided by Our- 
selves:— We Therefore for this purpose expressly order and command all 
Governors, Justices, Officers, Magistrates, and inhabitants of the aforesaid 
United Lands, to allow the said Company peaceably and quietly to use and 
enjoy the whole benefit of this our Grant and Consent, refraining from all 
opposition and obstacles to the contrary : Inasmuch as we consider the 
same to be for the service and advantage of the country. Given under our 
Seal, and the Paraph and signature of our Secretary, at tlie Hague, the 
eleventh day of October, IGl-t. 

* A tiwisliitii.n of this Cli.artor i.s in N. Y. C'lil. Doc, I. 5, 6. 

t For !i t'iic'siiiiilf of tills map, see N. Y. t'ol. Doc, I. 18. Sec iilsn the map eomjineil l.\ Mr. 
Brudlieafl. for liisllistorj of New York, w hieh illnsti-ates tliis ptiblieatiori. 



Af/'KXI)J.V. 



NOTE B. 

New England writei-s, in tlreir zeal to establish a paramount British title 
to the whole of North America between Virijinia and Canada, appear to 
have overlooked the doctrine announced by Queen Elizabeth in 1580, and 
confirmed in the House of Commons in 1621, as stated ante, page 9. This 
doctrine was, that ^^prescription wit/iout possession is of no avail ;'^ the 
logical consequence of which is, that the " prescription" arising from the 
voyages of the Cabots gave England no title except to such American ter- 
ritory, discovered by her subjects, as she might actually occupy. Under 
this rule, her title to Virginia was never questioned. But by King James's 
second Patent of May, KiOi). the northern boundtiry of Virginia was fixed 
at about the fortieth parallel of latitude. The country between Virginia 
and Canada had been left a i-iieuiim ffomicilium, after the abandonment of 
Maine by the Sagadahoc colonists in 1R08. The discoveries of the Dutch in 
this intermediate and unknown region were followed by their permanent 
occupation of the most of it ; and the only Englishman that seems to have 
visited New Netherlaxd, after those in the Half Moon, was Dermer, in 
161!). The New England Patent of November, 1020, by its express Pro- 
viso that no territory was intended to be granted which was " actually 
possessed or inhabited by any other Christian Prince or Estate," would 
appear to liave clearly excepted New France and New Netherland, the 
actual possession of which by the French and the Dutch was undenialjle. 
Yet, with the coolest audacity, one of the preliminary recitals of that 
Patent declared that there were " no other the subjects of any Christian 
King or State, by any authority from their Sovereign Lords or Princes, 
actually in pussession" of any of the territory between the fortieth and tlie 
forty -eighth degrees of latitude I In the same spirit, the English Privy 
Council, in December, 1621, pretended that the King had "good and suf- 
ficient title" to the whole of that region, •'■ jure prima; occupationisy If 
by this was meant the temporary and limited English " occupation" by the 
colony at Sagadahoc, it was a palpable absurdity ; because that English 
" occupation" of a part of Maine was abandoned before the Dutch discovery 
of unknown New Netherland. To insi.st upon such a fallacy was simply to 
substitute " prescription" for " possession" — a doctrine which both Queen 
Elizabeth and Parliament had derided. Nevertheless, this transparent sub- 
terfuge ciicoiistriictire, instead oi iicltial possession, was the strongest ground 
upon which the English nuiintained their title as against the Dutch. See 
further on this subject, Brodhead's New York, I. 4. 15, ii. 92-'.iri. ]:W-l-t+. 
189. 252. (133. r,34.: H;izaid"s Collections. 1. Io:l-l]S: Trnmbnirs Connect!- 



Cy2 COMMKMOIiATIVE OnA'/'/ON. 

cut, I. 547, 554; X. Y. Colonial DocuuKMits. I. 27. II. 287, 802, .32.5. 
332, 379-382, 389, 412, III. 0-8, VJI. .iOfi ; Sir.itli's N". Y., I. 297; Dun- 
lap's N. Y., II., A]jperi(lix, ccvi.— It could liMi-dly, |ici-liaji.s, liave been 
expected that the Editor of the recent volume on " Henry Hudson the 
Navigator," i)ublishcd by the Ilakhiyt Society of London, in 18(iii, should 
have avoided tlie errors which deform his Introduction to that work. 



N ( ) T E C . 

Translation of the Ooinmissioii from the States-(tenera.l of the 
United Netherlands to Peter Stl'yvesant, as Director- 
General of New NETHERr.AND, dated 28 July, 1646 : — from the 
New York Coloni.al Documents, vol. I. p. 178. 

THE STATES-GENERAL ok tue rxiiKD NETnEni.AXD.s.— To all those 
to whom these Presents sh.ill come, or who shall hear them read. Healtli ; Be 
IT Knowx : Whereas we have deemed it advisable for the advancement of 
the affairs of the General Incorporated West India Company not only to 
maintain the trade and population on the coast of y^eio Netherland and the 
places situate thereabout, also the islands Cura^oa. Bnenaire, Aru/m. .and 
their dependencies, which have hitherto been encouraged thither from this 
country, but also to make new treaties and alliances with foreign I'rinces, 
and to intlict as nuieli injury as ])o.ssible on the enemy in his forts and 
strongholds, as well by sea as by land; For which purposes it becomes 
necessary to appoint a person Director: WE, Therefore, confiding in the 
probity and experience of Petrus Stiiyvesant, formerly intrusted with 
our affairs in, and the government of, the aforesaid Island of Curai;oa and 
the places thereon depending, and We, being well pleased with his services 
there. Have commissioned and appointed and by these presents Do corn- 
mission and appoint the said Pktrus Sti'Yvesant Director in the aforesaid 
countries of Xeir KetherldtiiJ and the places thereunto adjoining, together 
witli the aforementioned Islands of Cnrnrim, Buenaii-e, Aniha, and their 
dependencies; to administer, with the Council as well now as hereafter 
ap]iointed with him, the said office of Director, both on water and on land, 
and in said qu.ality to attend carefully to the advancement, iiromotion, and 
(ireserv.itiou of friendship, alliances, trade, and commerce: to direct all 
matters appertaining to tratHc and war, and to maintain in all things there, 
good order for the service of the United Netherlands and the General West 
India Company; to establish regularity for the safeguard of the places and 
forts therein ; to administer law and justice as well civil as criminal: And 
moreover to perform all that concerns his office and duties in accordance 
with the Charter and the general and particular Instructions herewith 



Ai'PEXDix. 63 

given, and to be liereafter piveii liini, as a jiood and taitliful Director is 
bound and obliged by liis oatb in Our liands to do; Wbich done, WE, 
therefore, order and command all other officers, common soldiers, together 
with the inhabitants and natives residing in the aforesaid places as subjects, 
and all whom it may concern, to acknowledge, respect, and obey the said 
Petkus Stuyvesant fis our Director in the countries and places of New 
Nethe7'land, and in the Islands of Curiifoa^ Biieiuiire, Aruha, and their 
dependencies, and to ati'ord all Ijelp, countenance and assistance in the 
performance of these things, as We have found the same to be for the 
advantage of the Company. Done in onr Assembly at tlje Hague, on the 
xxviii. Jidy, 1646. 



NOTE D. 

Copy of the Commission from the Duke of York to Colonel 
Richard Nicolls, dated 2 April, 1664, Recorded in Book of 
Patents, vol. I. pp. 116-118, in the Office of the Secretary of 
State at Albany. 

JAMES, Duke of Yoi:k and Albany, Earl of Ulster, Lord High Admiral 
of ExciLAXD and Ihelano, &c.. Constable of Dover Castle, Lord Warden of 
the Cinque Ports, and Governor of Portsmouth, iSic. Whereas it hath pleased 
the King's most Excellent Majesty, my Sovereign Lord and Brother, by 
His Majesty's Letters Patents, bearing date at Westminster the Twel/tJi day 
of March in the Sixteenth year of His Majesty's Reign, to give and grant 
unto me and to my Heirs and Assigns, All tliat part of the nuiinland of 
New England, Beginning at a certain place called or known by the name 
of Saint Croix, next adjoining to New Scotland in America, and from thence 
extending along the sea-coast, unto a certain place called Petaquine or 
Pemaqnid, and so up the River thereof to the furthest head of the same, as 
it tendeth Northwards, and extending from thence to the River of Kine- 
hequi, and so upwards by the shortest course to the River Canada north- 
wards ; And Also all that Lsland or Islands commonly called by the several 
name or names of Matowacl-ji or Long Island, situate, lying, and being 
towards the west of Cape Cod and the Narrow-Higausets, abutting upon 
the mainland, between the two rivers there, called or known by tlie several 
names of Connei-ticul and Hudson's River; Together also with the said 
River called Hudson's River and all the land from the West side of Con- 
necticut River to the East side of HeUneare Bay; And Also all those several 
Islands called or known by the name of Martin's Vineyards and NaiUukes 
otherwise Nanfmhcf ; Together witli all tlie Lands. Islands, Soiles, River-', 
Harbours, Mines, Minerals, Quarries, Wimds. Marshes, Waters, Lakes, Fish- 



(i4 CoMMKMOUAT I VI-: OUATIOX. 

iiig, Hawking, Hunting, aiul Fowling, and all otliei' Royalties, Pi-otits, 
Commodities, Hereditaments, to the said several Islands, Lands, and Pre- 
mises belonging and appertaining, with their and every of their Appurte- 
nances ; To Hold the same to my own proper use and behoof. With Power 
to correct, punish, pardon, govern, and rule the Inhabitants thereof, by 
Myself, or such Deputies, Commissioners, or Officers as I shall tliink tit to 
appoint; as by His Majesty's said Letters Patents may more fully appear: 
And Whereas I have conceived a good opinion of the Integrity, Prudence, 
Ability and Fitness of Kiciiard Nkolls, Esquire, to be empU)yed as my 
Deputy there, I have tlierefore thought fit to constitute and appoint, And 
I do hereby constitute and ai)point him the said Richard Xicolh, Escpiire, 
to be my Deputy-Governor within the Lands, Islands, and Places aforesaid, 
To perform and execute all and every the Powers which are by the said 
Letters Patents granted unto me, to be executed by my Deputy, Agent, or 
Assign. To Have and to Hold the said place of Deputy-Governor unto 
the said Richard Nicvlls, Esquire, during my will and pleasure only; 
Hereby willing and requiring all and every the Inhabitants of the said 
Lands, Islands, and Places to give obedience to him the said Richard 
KicoUs in all things, according to the tenor of His Majesty's saiil Letters 
Patents; And the said Richard J^icoUn, Esquire, to observe, follow and 
execute such Orders and Instructions as he shall from time to time receive 
from myself Given, under tuy hand and seal, at Whitehid/, this Second 
day of April, in the Sixteenth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord 
Charles the Second, by the Grace of God King of England, Scotland, 
France, and Ireland, &c., Annoque Domini, KUU. 



By Command of His Royal Highness, 

W. Coventry. 



JAMES. (L. S.) 



NOTE E . 



OFFICIxVL DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE SURRENDER OF 
NEW NETHERLAND, agj^ august, ^gg^ 

' 5-S SKPTE.MBEU, 

Copy of Sliiyvesant's full ])ovver to his Commissioners, dated 
s^^t^GTr, 1664;— from Albany Records, XVIII. y22, 323, and 
General Entries, I. 30, 31. 

Tme DuiECTOE-GENEiiAL and Council of New Netherland hereby 
nmke known; — To ])revcnt the etfusion of blood, plundering, murders, and 
for the good of the inhaliitnnts, We are moved by the summons made by 
the honored Lord Riclianl NicoUs, General of his Maiestie of England. 



Appendix. 65 

being come with his meu-nf-wur ami soldiers before the ])Oi't, promising 
freely (by his own proposition madej to re-deliver the Fort and City of 
Amsterdam in New Netherland, in case the difterenoe of the limits of this 
Province be agreed upon betwixt His Majestic of England and the High 
and Mighty States-General; likewise upon other eqnal and answerable 
conditions, to surrender and deliver ; We have committed and do commit 
by this, John de Decker. Couiisellur of State; Captain Nicholas Verlett, 
Commissary concerning matters of trattic; Samnel Megapolensis, Doctor of 
Physick ; Cornells Steenwyck, Burgomaster; Oloft' Stcvensen van Cort- 
landt, old Burgomaster; and James Cousseau, old Schepen of this City, to 
agree with the aforesaid Lord General Hiehard NicoUs or his deputies upon 
furtlier articles ; by these open letters promising that we will faithfully 
fulfill whatsoever shall hy our fore-named Cotnmissioners concerning these 
businesses be promised and agreed upon. In testimony of this it is con- 
firmed by our Scale, in the Fort of Amsterdam in New Netherhind, the 5th 
day of September, New Style, 16(i4. 



Copy of Nicolls's full power to his Coinmissioners, dated 
26Auf.'Ui,t. 1664 ;_tVom General Entries, I. 32, 33. 



t*) SeptenihtT, 

I, Colonel RicUAiiU Niooll.s, Commander-in-Chief of all His Majesties 
forces now beleaguering the town on the ManhataTis, I)o accept of the 
proposal made by the Governor and his Council there residing, to treat of 
an accommodation by Articles of Surrender of the said Town and Forts 
thereunto belonging under His Majestie's obedience, to prevent the effusion 
of blood and to improve the good of the inliabitants; And wliereis the 
Governor and Council are pleased to nominate and appoint John de Decker, 
Counsellor of State; Nicholas Varlett, Commissary concerning matters of 
traffic; Samnel Megapolensis. Doctor of Physick; Cornells Steenwyck, 
Burgomaster: Oloft' Stevensen van Kortlandt, old Burgomaster; aiul James 
Cousseau, old Sberitfe of this City, to agree and conchule with me or my 
Deputies, upon further Articles, promising they will faithfully fulfill what- 
soever shall be by their fore-named Commissioners promised or agreed upon 
in the Treaty on their partes, I Do Therefore, on ray p.art, nominate and 
ai)point Sir Robert Carr, Knight; Colonel George Cartwright; Mr. John 
Wiuthrop, Governor of Hi< Majestie's Colony of Connecticut ; Mr. Samuel 
Willys, one of the Chief Councill of the said Colony ; Captain Thomas 
Clarke, and Captain John Pincheon, Commissioners from the Court Gen- 
erall of the Colony of the Massachusetts, To be my sufficient Deputys. to 
treat and conclude upon the Articles of Surrender of the aforenamed place. 
Promising that I will faithfully fulfill whatsoever they shall so treat and 
conclude upon. In Testimony Whereof, I have hereunto sett my hand and 
Seale, at the Camp before the Manhatans, this 26th day of August, Old 

Style, lt)«-t. 

Ricir.uji) NKOLI.S. 

9 



6( ') Co M MKM 1.- A ri VJ-: On a no .v. 

'Tis desired and agreed upon by tlie C'uiiiiiiissioiiers on both parts above 
mentioned, that tlieir meeting upon the jiremises sliall he to-morrow morn- 
ing, being tlie 27tli of tliis niontli of August, Old Style, precisely at 8 o'clock 
in the morning, at a 2)lace called the Governor's Bowery, upon the Man- 
hattans. 



Copy of the Article-; oi" Capitulation, agreed u|)on at the Governor's 
Bouwery, on Satiinlay, tlie -j~^J^^J^^ 1664, and confimied by 
NicoUs ;— from N. Y. General Entries, I. 23-;i6, and from the 
HoUandtse Mercuriiis for September, 1664, 158, 154. 

" These articles following were consented to by the persons hereunder 
sul)scribed, at the Governor's Iiouwery, August 27th, Old Style [September 
6th], 1664. 

" I. We consent tliat tlie States-General, or the "West India Company, 
shall freely enjoy all farms and houses (except such as are in the forts), and 
that within sis months they shall have free liberty to transport all sucli 
arms and ammunition as now do belong to them, or else they shall be 
paid for them. 

" II. All publique houses shall continue for the uses which tliey are now 
for. 

"III. All people shall still continue free denizens, and shall enjoy their 
lands, houses, goods, sliipps, wheresoever they are within tliis country, 
and dispose of them as they please. 

'• IV. If any inhabitant have a mind to remove himself, he shall have a 
year and six weeks from this day to remove himself, wife, children, ser- 
vants, goods, and to dispose of his lands here. 

" V. If any officer of state, or publique minister of state, have a mind to 
go for England, they shall be transported, freight free, in his majesty's fri- 
gates, when these frigates shall return thither. 

'■ VI. It is consented to, that any people may freely come from the 
Netherlands, and plant in tliis country, and that Dutch vessels may freely 
come hither, and any of the Dutch may freely return home, or send any 
sort of merchandise home, in vessels of their own country. 

"VII. All ships from the Netherlands, or any other place, and goods 
therein, sliall be received here, and sent hence, after the manner which for- 
merly they were before our coming hither, for six months next ensuing. 

"VIII. The Dutch here shall enjoy the liberty of their consciences in 
divine worship and church discipline. 

"IX. No Dntchnum here, or Dutch ship here, shah, upon any occasion, 
be pressed to serve in war, against any nation whatsoever. 

" X. That the townsmen of the Manhatoes shall not have any soldiers 
quartered upon tlieni without being satisfied and paid for them by their 



ApPKyni.v. fi7 

officers, and that, at this present, if the fort he not eajialile of loilsriiifi: all 
the soldiers, then the Burgomasters, hy their officers, shall appoint some 
houses capable to receive them. 

" XI. The Dutch here shall enjoy their own customs concerniuf; their 
inheritances. 

'■ XII. All publiiiue writina;s and records, which concern the inheri- 
tances of any people, or the reglement of the church, or poor, or orphans, 
shall be carefully kept by those in whose hands now they are, and such 
writings as particularly concern the States-General may at any time be 
sent to them. 

"XIII. Xo judgment that has passed any judicature here shall be called 
in question ; but if .uny conceive that he hath not had justice done him, if 
he apply himself to the States-General, the other party shall be bound to 
answer for the supposed injury. 

"XIV. If any Dutch living here shall at anytime desire to travaile or 
traffique into England, or any place or plantation iu obedience to his 
Majesty of England, or with the Indians, he shall have (upon his request 
to the Governor) a certificate that he is a free denizen of this place, and 
liberty to do so. 

" XV. If it do appeare that there is a pul)lique engagement of debt by the 
town of the Manhatoes, and a way agreed on for the satisfying of that eu- 
gagement, it is agreed that the same way proposed >hall go on, and that 
the engagement shall be satisfied. 

" XVI. All inferior civil officers and magistrates shall continue as now 
they are (if they please) till the customary time of new election, and then 
new ones to be chosen by tliemselvcs, provided that such new chosen 
magistrates shall take the oath of allegiance to his Majesty of England, 
before they enter upon their office. 

" XVII. All differences of contracts and bargains made before this day, by 
any in this country, shall be determined according to the mannerof tlie Dutch. 

"XVII I. If it do appeare that the West India Company of Amsterdam 
do really owe any sums of money to any persons here, it is agreed that 
recognition, and other duties payable by ships going for the Netherlands, 
be continued for six months longer. 

" XIX. The officers military, and soldiers, shall march out witli their 
arms, drums beating, and coulours flying, and lighted matches ; and if any 
of them will plant, they shall have fifty acres of land set out for them ; if 
any of them will serve as servants, they siiall continue with all safely, and 
become free denizens afterwards. 

" XX. If at any time hereafter the King of Great Britain and the States 
of the United Netherlands do agree that this place and country be rede- 
livered into the hands of the said States, whensoever his Majestie will send 
his commands to redeliver it, it shall immediately be done. 

" XXI. Th.at the town of Manhatans sh.all choose deputyes, and those 
deputyes shall have free voyces in all publi(|ue afl^airs as much as any other 
deputyes. 



68 C '0 AJ MEM /.' .1 T/VE On AT 10 X. 

"XXII. Tho^e wlio have iiiiy property in any houses in the fort of 
Oniiific shall fif they please) slight the fortilications there, and then enjoy 
nil their houses as all people do wliere there is no fort. 

•• XXIII. If there he any soldiers that will go into Holland, and if tlie 
Company of West India in Amsterdam, or any private persons here, will 
transport them into Ik)lhuKl, then tliey shall have a safe passport from 
Colonel Kiohard Nioolls, Deputy-Governor under his Royal Highness, and 
the other Commissioners, to defend the ships that shall transport such 
soldiers, and all the goods in them, from any snrprizal or acts of hostility 
to he done hy any of his Majestie's ships or subjects. 

" XXIV. That the copy of the King's grant to his Royal Highness, and 
the copy of his Royal Highness's commission to Colonel Richard Nioolls 
(testified hy two Commissioners more and Mr. Winthrop, to be true copies), 
shall be delivered to the Honourable Mr. Stuyvesant, the present Governor, 
on Monday next, by eight of the clock in the morning, at the Old Mill,* and 
also these articles coiisented to and signed by Colonel Richard Nioolls, 
Deputy -Governor to his Royal Higlmess; and that within two hours after, 
the fort and town called New Amsterdam, upon the island of Manhatoes, 
shall be delivered into the hands of the said Colonel Richard Nicolls, by 
the service of such as .shall be by him thereunto deputed by Ids hand and 
seal. 

"John de DErKER, Robert C.\rr, 

Nicholas Vari.ett, George Cartwrioht, 

Samuel Megapolensis, John Winthrop, 

Oornelis Steenwyok, Samuel Willys, 

Jacques Cousseau, Thomas Clarke, 

Olofi- S. van Cortlandt, John Pinchon. 

" I do consent to these articles, 

" Richard Nicolls." 



Copy of the Ratification of the Articles of Capitulation, by Stuyve- 
sant and his Council, on Monday, the i^'seiit'fTnbe'r ^^^'^ ' — *'"""^ 
Albany Records, XVIII. 326, and General Entries, I. 31, 32. 

The Director-General and Coltncil of New Netherland, to all 
who shall hear or see this. Greeting : Be it known that we hereby ratify 
and contirm the Conditions agreed on and concluded, on the Sixth of this 
month, between our Commissioners, the Honorable John de Decker, mem- 
ber of our Council ; Captain Nicholas Varlett, Commissary of wares and 
merchandises; the Reverend Samuel Megapolensis; the Honorable Corne- 
lls Steenwyok, Burgomaster ; Oloti' Steven.sen van Cortlandt, old Burgo- 

* For the sitiiutiuii of tbis "Old Mill," see ante^ p. 36, JioU. 



Appexdix. 69 

master; and Jacques Cousseau, old Schepen of this city, with the Com- 
missioners of the Honorable Governor Richai-d Nicolls, Commander of His 
Britannic Majesty's frigates and land forces who besiesed this fortress and 
city; namely, Sir Robert Carr, George Cartwright, John Winthrop, Samuel 
"Willys, John Pincheon, and Thomas Clarke ; And We promise to exeente 
the same. Done in Fort Amsterdam in New Netherland, on 8th Septem- 
ber. 1604. 

P. Stuvvesant. 

N. DE SiLLE. Jacob Backer. 

Martin Krygiee. Timotdeus Gabry. 

Paulus Leendertsen tan deb Grist. Isaac Gretenraet. 

PlETER TONNEMAN. NiCOLAAS DE MeYEE. 

I certitie the same. 

CORNELIS VAN RuYVEN, 

Secretary. 



NOTE F. 

Translation of a letter from Corjjelis van Rutfen, late Secretary 
of New Netherland, to the Dutch Villages on Long Island, 
announcing the Surrender, dated, 8 September, 1664 ; — from the 
Bushwick Records, and from Thompson's Long Island, II. 165 ; 
— see also N. Y. Colonial Documents II. 415, 445, 502, 509. 

September 8, 1664, K. S. 
Beloved Friends : 

It has happened that New Netherland is given up to the English, and 
that Peter Stuyvesant, Governor for the West India Company, has marched 
out of the Fort with his men, by Beaver street (Bevers Paed) to the Hol- 
land shipping, which lay there at the time ; And that Governor Richard 
Nicolls, in the name of the King of England, ordered a corporal's guard 
to take possession of the Fort. Afterwards, the Governor, with two com- 
panies of men, marched into the Fort, accompanied by the Burgomasters 
of the City, wlio inducted the Governor, and gave him a welcome reception. 
Governor Nicolls has altered the name of the City of New Amsterdam, and 
named the same New York, and named the fort. Fort James. 
From your friend, 

COENBLIS VAN RtJTVEN. 



COMMKMOHA Tl VK (tKA TION. 



NOTE G. 

Translation of a letter from the Sciiout, BrEGOMASTEEs, ;Hid 
ScHEPENS of the City of New Amsteedam, to the West India 
Company, dated, IG September, 1664, N.S. ;• — from New Amster- 
dam Records, V. 567-570, and ^'a!entine's Manual for 1860, 
592, 593. 

Right lIoxoiiABLE, Pkcdext Lords, the Lords Directors of the 
JIoN'ORABi.E West India Company, at the Amsterdam Uiiambeu : 

Right Honorable Lords : — 

We, your Honors' loyal, sorrowful, and desolate subjects, cannot neglect 
nor keep from relating the event, which, through God's pleasure, thus un- 
expectedly happened to us in consequence of your Honors' neglect and 
forgetfulness of your promise ; to Wit : The arrival here of late, of four 
King's frigates from England, sent hither by His Majesty and his brother 
the Duke of York, with oonniiission to reduce not only this place, but also 
the whole of New Netherlund under His Majesty's authority ; whereunto 
they brought with them a large body of soldiers, provided witli consider- 
able ammunition. On board of one of the frigates were about four hun- 
dred and fifty, as well soldiers as seamen ; and the others in proportion. 

The frigates being come together in front of Najac in the Bay, Richard 
Nicolls the Admiral, who is ruling here at present as Governor, sent a let- 
ter to onr Lord Director-General, communicating therein the cause of his 
coming, and his wish. 

On this unexpected letter, the Heer General sent for us, to determine 
what was to be done in the matter. Whereupon it was I'esolved and de- 
cided to send some Commissioners thitlier, to argue the matter with the 
General and his three Commissioners ; wlio were so sent for this purpose 
twice. But no answer was received, except that they were not come here 
to dispute about it, hut to execute their order and commission without fail, 
either peaceably or by force ; and if they had any tiling to dispute aliout 
it, it must be done with His Majesty of England, as we could do notliing 
here in the premises. Three days' delay was demanded for consultation. 
That was duly allowed; — but meanwhile they were not idle. They ap- 
proaclied with their four frigates, two of which passed in front of the 
Fort. The other anchored about Nooten Island, and with five companies 
of soldiers encamped themselves at the Ferry oi)posite this place ; together 
with a newly raised coni])auy of horse and a Jiarty of new soldiers, both 
from the North and from Long Island, mostly all our deadly enemies —who 
expected notliing else than pilhii;e, iilunder, and bloodshed — as men could 
perceive by their cursing and talking wiieii iiientiun was made of a capitu- 
lation. 



Appendix. 71 

Finally, beiug then encircled rouiul about, we saw little means of deliver- 
anee. We considered what ouglit to be done ; and after we bad well in- 
quired into our strength, and Iiad found it to be full fifteen hundred souls 
in this place, but of them not two hundred and fifty men capable of bearing 
arms, exclusive of tlie soldiers, who were about one hundred and fifty 
strong ; wholly unprovided with jiowder. botli in the city and in the Fort 
— yea, not more than six hundred pounds were found in tlie Fort besides 
seven hundred jiounds that is unserviceable; Also because the countrymen, 
the third man of whom was called out, refused. We, with the greater por- 
tion of the inhabitants, considered it necessary to remonstrate with our 
Lord Director-General and Council, that their Honors might consent to a 
capitulation. Whereunto we labored according to our duty, and had much 
troul)le; Laid down and considered all the difficulties which should arise 
therefrom, not being able to resist such an enemy, as they could also re- 
ceive a much greater force than they then had under command. 

The Director-General and Council at lengtli consented thereunto. 
Whereupon Commissioners were sent to the Admiral, who notified him that 
it was resolved to come to terms, in order to save the shedding of blood, 
if a good Agreement could be concluded. 

Six persons were commissioned on each side, for the purpose of treating 
on tliis matter ; which they have done and concluded in manner as appears 
liy the Articles annexed. How that will result, time will tell. 

Meanwhile, since we have no longer to depend upon your Honors' prom- 
ises or protection. We, with all the poor, sorrowing, and abandoned com- 
monalty here, must tly for refuge to the Almighty God, not doubting but 
He will stand by us in this sorely afflicting conjuncture, and no more de- 
part from us. 

And we remain your 

Sorrowful and abandoned subjects, 

PlETEl: TONNE.MAN, JaCOB BacKEE, 

Paulus Leesdertsen van der Grist, Timotheus Gabby, 

OoENELis Steenwyck, Isaac Greveneaet, 

Nicolaas de Meyer. 

Done in Jorck, heretofore named Amsterdam, in New Netherland, Anno 
1664, the 16th of September. 



T2 COMMKMOUAnVE OUATIOX. 



NOTE H, 



Translation of a letter from the Rcvereml Samuei, Drisius, one of 
the Collegiate Ministers of the Reformed Uiiteh Church at New 
Amsterdam, to the Classis of Amsterdam, dated 15 September^ 
1664, N. S. ; from the Origuidl ^Linuitcript in the possession of 
the General Synod of the Reformed Protestant Dutch 
Church in North America. 

To THE Reverend, Leaejjed, an» Pious Brotueks of the Venerabi,e 
Classis of Amsterdam. 

I cannot neglect to acquaint your Reverences with our present condition, 
namely that we arc now brought under the government of the King of 
England. On the Twenty-sixth of August there arrived in the Bay of the 
North River, near Staten Island, four great ships-of-war or frigates, well 
equi])i)ed, manned with seamen and soldiers, having a Patent or Connnis- 
sion from the King of Great Britain to demand and receive this Province 
in the name of His Majesty, and, if the same should not be accomplished 
by amicable arrangement, then to attack the place by force ; and that then 
all should be given over to the pillage, robbery, and spoil of the English 
soldiers. The people here were not a little amazed at the arrival of these 
frigates. Our Lords, the Director and Council, together with the Regents 
of the City, took this affair very much to heart ; and with all diligence, by 
messages sent hack and forth to the General Richard Niculls, sought 
to delay these matters, and that they might be referred to his Majesty of 
England and the Lords States of Holland. But all was in vain! They 
landed their soldiers about six miles olf, at (rravesend, and inarched them 
on foot upon Long Island up to the Ferry, over against this [dace. And on 
the Fourth of September, the frigates came with full sail, as far as here, 
having their guns all ready on one side, charged and intending (in case any 
hostilities should be used against them) to discharge their full broadsides on 
this open place, and then to conquer this town by violence, and give over every 
thing to rapine and massacre. Our Noble Lords and Regents, as well of the 
Noble [West India] Company as of the City, were H-ell disposed to defend 
the place. But tliey saw that it was impossible ; because the town was 
not in a condition of defence, though it was now being fortified ; that even 
then it could not be defended, seeing that each man would have to stand 
foui' rods from tlie other in the ramparts of the I'ity ; that there was little 



Appendix. 73 

provision of powder, as well in tlie fort as in the town ; and t!iat tliore was 
no relief or assistance to be expected ; — but, on the other hand, that a i^reat 
concourse of Englishmen, as well foot as horse, caitie hitherwards daily out 
of New England, very ardent for the plundering of this place ; also that 
six hundred Northern Savages, and one hundred and fifty French rovers, 
with English commissions, had ofl'ered their services against us. So it was 
that our authorities, under the strong urgency of the burghers and inhab- 
itants, were compelled, in order to prevent plundering and bloodshed, to 
resolve (however unwillingly) to come to an Agreement ; the T\-hich was 
accordingly concluded on the Sixth of September. And so the English 
marched into our City on the Eighth of September, according to the Con- 
vention. 

After the surrender of this place, several Englishmen, whom we have 
long known, and who are well affectioned towards us, came to us, saying 
that God had particularly ordered this atfair so that it was settled by a Con- 
vention ; because otherwise nothing could have come out of it but plundei-- 
ing, murdering, and total ruin. The which, also, several soldiers confirmed ; 
who said that they had come here out of England in hope of booty, .and 
now that it had fallen out otherwise, they wished that they might go back 
again to England. 

And whereas it was arranged in the Articles that the Church service and 
doctrine, together with the Clergymen, should remain and continue as they 
have been until now, we could not separate ourselves from our congregation 
and hearers, but have felt ourselves obliged by our duty to abide, yet for a 
time, with the s.ame, so that they should not, all at once, be scattered, and 
dwindle away. 

I have a moderate sum due to me from the Noble [West India] Company, 
•which I hope and wish may be paid. And so I end, commending your 
reverend persons and labors to the blessing of Giid, and remain. 
Your Eeverences' obedient Brotljer, 

Samuei. Drisius. 
ManhattAns. 
.4nno lliCt Sept, 15. 

10 



PROCEEDS GS 



NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



IN RELATION' TO 



THE COMMEMORATIOX 



CONQUEST OF NEW NETHERLAND, 



TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY. 



NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. 

M Dccc Lxrr. 



OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. 
1864. 



President, 
FREDERIC DE PEYSTER. 

Fimt Yire-P resident, 
THOMAS i.E WITT, D. D. 

Second Vice-President, 
BENJAMIN ROBERT WINTHROP. 

Foreign Correspondinr/ Secretary, 
GEORGE BANCROFT, LL. D. 

Domestic Corres/iniidi/ii/ Secretary, 
SAMUEL OSGOOD, D.D. 

Recording Secretary, 
ANDREW WARNER, 

Tri-asfirer, 
BENJAMIN H. FIELD. 

Liihrarian, 
GEORGE HENRY MOORE. 



EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 

AUGUSTUS SCHELL, 
ERASTUS C. BENEDICT, 
BENJAMIN W. BONNEY, 
JOHN ROMEYN BRODHEAD, 
WILLIAM CHAUNCEY, 
CHARLES P. KIRKLAND, 
GEORGE FOLSOM, 
GEORGE GIBBS, 
ROBERT L. STUART. 



KEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



COMMEMOEATION 

OF THE 

CONQUEST OF NEW NETHERLAND. 

October 12, 1864. 



The New Yoi-k Historical Society, at its meeting on the second 
of Febriinry, 1864, taking into consideration the importance of the 
event, resolved that it would commemorate, by suitable acts and 
proceedings, the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Conquest of 
New Netherland, in the autumn of the year 1664. 

A Committee of Arrangements, including some of its most 
distinguished members, was accordingly appointed, and John 
RoMEYN Beodhead vvas selected to deliver the Commemorative 
Oration. 

The Committee, in executing their duty, addressed the f )llowing 
letter of invitation to various Historical Societies and eminent 
citizens in New York and other States : — 

NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

Library, New York Vity, September loth, 1864. 

Sir : — The New York Historical Society proposes to commemorate, by suit- 
able Acts and Proceedings, tlie Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Conquest of 
New Netherland, in the autumn of the year 1664. 

Ne.xt to the discovery iu 1609, by the Dutch, of New Netlierland — the original 
bounds of whicli included tlie present States of Maine, New Ilampsliire, Vermont, 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Yorli, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 



80 Proceedings oe tue Society. 

and Delaware — its couq\iest by the English, in 16G4, is tlie most interesting event 
in the Colonial Ilistor}' of New York. The consequences of this event were of 
momentous import, not only to the City and the State of New York, but to the 
American Union. It forms one of those great epochs in National existence which 
it is the special office of Historical Societies fitly to observe. 

The time appointed for the proposed commemoration is Wednesday, the 
Twelfth of October next, l)eing just two centuries after tlie last Duteli Fort on 
the Delaware was taken by the Englisli, and the conquest of New Xethcrlaud was 
completed. 

An Oration will be delivered on that day, before tlie Society and its guests, at 
the Hall of the Union, Cooper Institute, in this City, by John Romevn Brod- 
HE.4D, LL.D. ; and other proceedings will take place. 

In behalf of the New York Historical Society, the undersigned request the 
pleasure of your attendance on this occasion. 

Awaiting your favorable reply, 

We have the honor to be. Sir, 

Your obedient servants, 

GtlLIAN C. VeRPI,.4NCK, FREDERIC DE PEY.STER, 

George B.\xcroft, Augustl's Schell. 

Ha.miliox Fish, George Folsom, 

J.4MES W. UeEKMAS, CuaRI.es p. KlRKLAXD, 

Evert A. Duyckinck, Andrew Warner, 

George H. Moore, 

Committee of Arrangements. 

In ptirsuance of these nrrangements, a special meeting of the 
Society wns held at the H.tll of the Union, Cooper Institute, at a 
quarter past seven o'clock, on Wednesday evening, the twelfth of 
October, 1864. 

Notwithstanding the inclemency of tlie weather, the meeting 
was largely attended by a very respectable audience. Among 
those who occupied seats on the platform were many distinguished 
citizens, representing various departments in the State and munici- 
pal governments, the Army and Navy, and the learned professions. 
Delegates from several Historical Societies were also present. The 
New Hampshire Society was represented \>\ the Rev. Dr. N. Boa- 
ton and Joseph B. Walker, Esq. ; Maine, by the Kev. William 
Stevens Perry ; Rhode Island, by Dr. Usher Parsons ; Connecticut, 
by J. Hammond Truinbitll, Esq. ; New Jersey, by William A. 
Whitehead, Esq., and Solomon Alofsen, Esq.; Pennsylvania, by 
Thomas II. Montgnmcry, Esq.; Dilawaie, by Bishop Lee, Dr. 
Henrv F. Askew, and William D. i)owe, Esq. ; Long Island, by 



Froceedixgs of Tilt: Soi/ety. 81 

the Rev. Dr. li. S. Storis, Ch.arles E. West, LL.U., Josliiia 31. 
Van Cott, Esq., Dr. Henry II. Stiles, and Alden J. Spooner, Esq, ; 
Buffalo, by William Dorsheiiner, Esq., Dr. James P. White, 
George S. Hazard, Esq. 

The meeting was called to oidor by Frkdeiuc Dk Pktster, 
Esquire, the President of the Society, who addressed the audience 
as follows : — 

Members and Guests of the New Youk Historical .Society: 

We are assembled this evening to commamorata tlie Two Hiindredtli Anniver- 
sary of tlie Conquest of New Netlierland, in tlie autumn of tlio year 1G64. Tlio 
circumstances and tlie consequences of this momentous event will be appropriately 
set forth to you tiy the Orator selected by the Society. A century after her con- 
quest, New York was foremost among her sister colonies in taking measures which 
looked towards National Independence. Retributive justice, in 1183, followed 
slowly, but surely, tho trespass of 16;U. In our own day. when another century 
has passed away, our powerful and patriotic State is found putting forth gigantic 
eflforts to maintain our National Union; assaulted as it is by domestic treason, 
which is fostered by foreign machinations. The Commemorative Oration, on this 
occasion, will be delivered by our fellow-member. Joiix Romeyx BRODnEAi), Doctor 
of Laws, and well known as tlie historian of our State. The proceedings of this 
evening will begin by a Prayer, to be offered by the Reverend Tho.mas De Witt, 
Doctor of Divinit3% Senior iUinister of the Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch 
Church in this city, and First Vice-President of this Society. 

The Reverend Doctor De Witt then ofiered an appropriate 
Prayer. 

After whicli, the President introduced :\lr. J^rodiieau, who pro- 
ceeded to deliver his Oration. 

At the conclusion of Jlr. Brodhead's Or.iiioii, the Honorable 
GuLiAN Crommelix Teui'lanck rose to move a resolution of 
thanks. 

Jlr. Yerplanck said, that in offering this Resolution, laboring as he was under 
a severe cold, and a hoarseness which must render his voice scarcely audible to 
most of tills assembly, yet he could not refram from expressing the high gratifica- 
tion he had felt in listening to the discourse just concluded. It contained much 
curious and instructive historical inlbnnatiou, most "f it not familiar even to tlie 
Btudious historical inquirer, and the fruit of large and accurate research. It was 
enriched tliroughout by a sagacious and clear-siyhted historical philosophy, 
tracing out both the causes and the results of tho most striking and the noblest 
peculiarities of the char.acter and fortunes of our State and Nation. Above all ho 
■could not but admire, as well as sympathize with, the glowing and grateful ances- 
tral spirit which animated the Orator,— a worthy descendant of the compatriots of 
William the Silent,— and which had enkindled congenial emotions among his 
11 



iS2 PiincKEDixa^ OF Tin-: Society. 

hearers. Jlr. Verplanck aildod, tliat iio was not able to expatiate on tbis 
rich and abundant Iheme, but must have recourse to the better voice of tlio 
Secretary, to malie his resolution audible to the Society. 

The Resolution offered by Mr. Veri'lanck having been read, as 
follows : — 

. lit'soh-fd, Tliat the tlianks of this Society are eminently due, and are hereby 
tendered, to John RO-METN Brodiieaii, LL. D., for his eloquent Oration, delivered 
this evening, in Comnienioration of the Conquest of New Xetlicrland, and that a 
copy be requested for the Archives of the Society, and for publication : — 

The Honorable George Baxceoft said : — 

I rise to second the vote of thanks wliieli has been proposed for the admi- 
rable discourse to which we have just listened. It is marked by a thorough and 
comprehensive knowledge of the subject, and by a careful style ; and it has 
been delivered with an earnestness which has enchained the attention of all. 

We remind ourselves, with just pride, that Mr. Brcdhead is one of the oldest 
members of our Societj-, and not surpassed by any in diligence and efficiency. It 
is to him that tliis State owes an invaluable collection of the Documents, gathered 
from many sources, to illustrate its History. To him, also, it owes tlie commence- 
ment of a work on its history, -which is so ful), so accurate, so marked by re- 
search, and an honest love of liistoric truth, that we have onlj* to bid him go on. 
and finish what he has so worthily begun. 

We have all been pleased with the zeal with which he has, this evening, dwelt 
on the virtues of the Republic of the United Netherlands; and there can be no 
division of opinion as to the sulxstantial fidelitj' of his picture. Sucli was always 
the opinion of New England. The founders of the first colony in Massachusetts, 
when they (led from tlie persecutions of their mother country, knew that Holland 
alone was the land where they could enjoy freedom of conscience ; and in our day 
the liand that has portrayed, in the strongest and most lasting colors, the heroism 
and tlie sufferings of the Batavians, v\'hen, in pursuit of their liberties, they went 
uutlincliingly through the baptism of fire and of blood, was that of a New 
Englander. 

Our orator has set before our eyes a bright vision of tlie glory of New Nether- 
land, when its territory, according to its claims, extended from some shadowy 
boundary in the distant north, beyond the soutliern Capo of the Delaware ; and 
has set before us the successive aggressions by which that vast territory was dis- 
membered, and formed into separate communities and States. Yet, as I listened 
to him, I seemed to think that the Providence which rules in human affairs, 
manifested in this a benevolent design. Had New Nethcrland remained undi- 
vided, it would have been so powerful, so opulent, and so self-relying, that it might 
have spurned at the thought of an equal union with other Colonies. It was broken 
into pieces, that New York, which by its position ought to be the eye of the country, 
miglit learn to feel its high vocation, to rally the many States of our Republic into 
superior union, to defend that union against all assailants, and to remain forever 
its spear and its shield! 



PnOCEFDIXGS OF THE S Or IE TV. 83 

The Resolution was uiiaiuinously adopteil. 

The Benediction was then proiiouncad by the Reverend Doctor 
De Witt. 

Immediately afterwards, a Reception was held at the Library of 
the Society, which was well attended. After some time spent in 
examining the Museum and Galleries, an entertainment was served 
in the Nineveh Room. At the call of the President, remarks were 
made by several of the invited guests, among whom were — 

Alben J. Spoonee, Esq., of the Long Island Historical Society. 
William Dorsiieimee, Esq., of the Buffalo Historical Society. 
Thomas H. Montgomery, Esq., of the Pennsylvania Historical 
Society. » 

Alfred B. Street, Esq., of Albany. 
Attorney-General John Cochrane. 



S4 FnocEEDJXGs ui' Tin-: Society. 



COKIIKSPONDEXCE, ETC. 

1. From Brantz Mayer, datoil ]5altimorc, Si-iitonilior 24, I8G4. accepting 
the invitation of tlie Committee. 

2. From Jolin William Wallace, dated Philadelpliia, .So])toinber 25, 1S(U, 
accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

3. From Henry R. krclioolci-aft, dated Washington, September 25, 1804, 
accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

4. From John M. Harhonr, dated New York, September 20, 18fi4, accept- 
ing the invitation of llie Committee. 

5. From Millard Fillmore, President of the Bntl'alo Historical Society, 
dated Buli'alo, September 26, 18(14, accepting the invit.ation of the Com- 
mittee. 

C. From Charles J. Ilo.idley, dated Hartford, September 26, 1864-, accept- 
ing the invitation of the Committee. 

7. From William H. I5ogart, dated Aurora, Caynga Lake, September 27, 
1864, accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

8. From the Mayor of the City of New York, dated Kew York, Septem- 
ber 27, 1864, accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

9. From James Moncrief, dated New York, 29th September, 1864, accept- 
ing the invitation of the Committee. 

10. From William H. Seward, dated Washington City, 29th September, 
1804, acknowledging the invitation of the Connnittee: — 

" I am profoundly gratified for the consideration which the New York Histor- 
ical Society liavc m.nnifostod, by inviting me to attend their proposecl (.'elebration 
ot the Two Iliiiidrodlli Anniversary of tlie Conquest of New Netlierland. The 
cliangcs in the condition of tlie American Continent wliicli have followed, and in 
eorae respects are due to, that great RevoUition, eontriljutc a theme upon which I 
sliould lil%e to hear the distinguished seliolar you liave cliosen to be the Orator of 
tlie occasion. But, just now, I am encxniibercd with the cares incident to the 
effort of our country to save ah that she has liitherto gained, and to secure for 
the continent a brighter and nol:)ler future than we have belbre contemplated ; 
and so, my respected and esteemed friend. I must ask you to have me excused." 

11. From N. Bouton, Corresponding Secretary of the New Hampshire 
Historical Society, dated Concord, N. H.. September 29, 1804, communi- 
cating the acceijtauce of the invitatinn of the Committee, and the aiijioiut- 



PliOCKEDIXGS OF THF. tioriETT. 85 

iiient of the Rev. N. Bouton, D. 1)., nnd .Tosei)li U. Walker, Esq., as dele- 
gates fi-om that Society. 

12. From Gideon J. Tucker, Surrogate, &c., dated New York, September 
30, 1864, accepting the invitation of the Coinniittee. 

18. From D. T. Valentine, dated New York, October 1, 1804, accepting 
the invitation of tlie Committee. 

14. Frt>m Charles W. SMiidford, Major-General, Ac, dated New York, 
October 1, 1804, accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

15. From Henry E. Davies, Judge of the Court of Appeals, dated Albany, 
October 1, 1864, accepting the invitiition of the Committeo. 

1 6. From Henry R. Selden, Judge of the Court of Appeals, dated Roches- 
ter, October .3, 1864, acknowledging the invitation of the Committee. 

17. From "William A. "Whiteliead, dated Newark, N. J., October 3, 1864, 
accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

18. From William A. Whitehead, Corresponding Secretary of the New 
Jersey Historical Society, dated Newark, N. J., October 3, 1864, commu- 
nicating the acce])tance of the invitation of the Committee, and the ap- 
pointment of the Hon. Richard S. Field, Solomon Aiofsen, Esq., and 
William A. Whitehead, Esq., as delegates from that Society. 

19. From Edward Ballard, Secretary of the Maine Historical Society, 
dated Bninswick, Me., October 4, 1864, communicating the acceptance of 
the invitation of tlie Committee, and the appointment of the Hon. Edward 
E. Bourne, the Right Rev. George Burgess, D. I)., the Hon. William Willis, 
the Hon. John A. Poor, and tlie Rev. Edward Ballard, as delegates from 
that Society. 

20. From Robert C. Winthrop, President of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society, dated Boston, October 5, 1864, communicating the acceptance of 
the invitation of the Committee, and the appointment of delegates from 
that Society : — 

"Your obliging communication, inviting the Massachusetts Historical Society to 
send a delegation to your most interesting Commemoration on the 1 2th instant, 
was gratefully received. As no meeting of our Society would take place until after 
the occasion was over, our Standing Committee have appointed several of our 
members to represent us on the occasion ; and I trust that they will be present 
with you. 

" I regret extremely that it will not be in my own power to attend this festival, 
agreeably to yom- kind request. 1 have not forgotten the prominent part which 
was played by Governor Winthrop, of Connecticut, in the events which you com- 
memorate ; and it would be particularly pleasant to me to be permitted to repre- 
sent him on the occasion. But if your worthy Yice-President shall have returned 
from Europe in season for the celebration, you will have a representative of Win- 
throp and Stnyvesant in the same person. My worthy cousin would also be able 
to bring' with him the original draft of the letter of AVinthrop to Stnyvesant, 
which was the occasion of so ranch violent indignation. It was m_v good fortune 
to obtain possession of this letter, a few years since, and, after printing it in our 
Massachusetts Historical Collection.'!, to transfer it to the ownership of one who 
had a double claim to its possession." 



80 Proceedings of the Socjetv. 

21. From Edwiird Everett, dated Boston, October 5, 1864, acknowledging 
the invitation of the Committee ; — 

"I have received your obliging invitation to attend the Celeljration, by the New 
York Historical Society, of the Two Himdredth Anniversary of the Conquest of 
New Netlierland by the Englisli. 

■' The historical importance of that event — deciding, as it did, the nationality of 
North America — renders it a liighly proper subject for commemoration ; and your 
fortunate selection of an Orator for the occasion, ray fiiend Mr. Brodliead, than 
whom no one is better acquainted with the history of that period, gives assuranco 
that the treatment of the topic will be worthy of its intrinsic interest. I much 
regret that I must deny myself the pleasure of being present." 

22. From Samuel Hazard, dated Gerniantown, October 5, 1864, acknowl- 
edging the invitation of the Committee. 

23. From John R. Bartlett, dated Providence, R. I., October 5, 1864, 
acknowledging the invitation of the Committee. 

24. From Henry 0. Murphy, dated Brooklyn, October 5. 1864, accepting 
the invitation of the Committee. 

25. From M. Romero, Mexican Minister, dated Washington City, D. C, 
October 5, 1864, accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

20. From H. H. Van Dyck, Superintendent, &c., dated Alb.any, October 
5, 1804, accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

27. From W. K. Scott, Corresponding Secretary of the Buffalo Historical 
Society, dated October 5, 18ii4, communicating tlie acceptance of the invi- 
t.ation of the Committee, and the apjiointmeut of Millard Fillmore, Rev. 
Walter Clarke, G. R. Babcock, O. H. Marshall, Dr. J. P. White, H. W. 
Rogers, 0. G Steele, N. K. Hall, George B. Hibbard, and .John Ganson, 
as delegates from that Society. 

28. From Hiland Hall, President of the Vermont Historical Society, 
dated North Bennington, Vt., October 7, 1864, acknowledging the invita- 
tion of the Committee. 

29. From E. A. Dalrymplo, Corresponding Secretary of the Maryland 
Historical Society, dated Baltimore, October 7, 1864, communicating the 
acceptance of the invitation i>{ the Committee, and the appointment of the 
Hon. John P. Kennedy, Philip T. Tyson, the Rev. Dr. John G. Morris, 
John H. Alexander, and John H. B. Latrobe, as delegates from that So- 
ciety. 

30. From J. Wingate Thornton, dated Boston, October 8, 1864, acknowl- 
edging the invitation of the Committee. 

31. From Millard Fillmore, President of tlie Buffalo Historical Society, 
dated Buffalo, October 8, 1864, appointing William Dorsheimer a delegate 
from that Society. 

32. From H. Denio, Jndgo of the Court of Appeals, dated Utica, October 
8, 1864, acknowledging the invitation of the Committee. 

33. From William Barnes, Superintendent, &c., dated Albany, October 
8, 1864. aoceptiiig the invitation of the Committee. 



PnOCEEDlXGS OF THE SOCIETY. 87 

34-. From Horatio Gates Jones, dated Pliiladelpliia, October 8, 18G-t, 
acknowledging- tlie invitation of tlie Coinmitteo. 

35. From William D. Dowe. Recording Secretary of the Historical Soci- 
ety of Delaware, dated Wilmington, Del., October 8, 1864, communicating 
the acceptance of the invitation of the Committee, and the appointment of 
Henry F. Askew, M. D., Rev. Charles Breck, and William D. Dowe, Esq., 
as delegates from that Society. 

86. From the same, dated Wilmington, October 10, 1864, announcing the 
appointment of the Rt. Rev. Alfred Lee, Bishop of Delaware, &c., in place 
of the Rev. Charles Breck, as a delegate from that Society. 

37. From Henry R. Stiles, M. D., Librarian of the Long Island Historical 
Society, dated Brooklyn, October 8, 1864, communicating the acceptance 
of the invitation of the Committee, and the ap])oiritment of the Rev. K. S. 
Storrs, .Jr., D. D., the Hon. Henry 0. Mnrphy, Charles E. West, LL. D., 
B. O. Silliman, Esq., Joshua M. Van Cott, Esq., AMen J. Spooner, Esq., 
and the President and Librarian, ex-ajficio, as delegates from that Society. 

38. From William W. Campbell, dated Cherry Valley, October 10, 1864, 
acknowledging the invitation of tlie Committee. 

39. From Andrew H. Green, Comptroller of the Central Park, dated 
New York, October 10, 1864, in behalf of the Commissioners of the Park, 
accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

40. From J. Hammond Trumbull, dated Hartford, Conn., October 10, 
1864, accepting tlie invitation of the Committee. 

41. From George F. Houghton, Recording Secretary of the Vermont His- 
torical Society, dated St. Albans, Vermont, October 10, 1804, communi- 
cating the acceptance of the invitation of the Committee, and the appoint- 
ment of Messrs. Henry Hall and George F. Houghton, as delegates from 
that Society. 

42. From Albert G. Greene, President of the Rhode Island Historical 
Society, dated Providence, October 10, 1864, acknowledging the invitation 
of the Committee. 

43. From Cliarles J. Hoadley, Corresponding Secretary of the Connec- 
ticut Historical Society, dated Ilartfoi'd, October 11, 1864, communicating 
the acceptance of the invitation of the Committee, and the appointment of 
the Hon. Henry C. Deming, and Messrs. Samuel II. Parsons and Erastus 
Smith, as deleg.ates from that Society. 

44. From John V. L. Pruyn, Chancellor of the University of the State of 
New York, dated Albany, October, 11, 1864, acknowledging the invitation 
of the Committee. 

:).*# The Committfc desire to acknowledtfe their olili^ations to Messrs. Il.irper .ind Brotliers, 
the Putdishers of Mr. Brodhe.id's History of New York, for the use of the M.ip prefixed to that 
work, wliieh illustrates this publieation. Also to Messrs. Benjafnin K. "Wiiitlu-op and George 
Folsoni, for the portrait of Stuy vesant : to Messrs. Georse Banrroft and Little. Brown Jc Co., for 
that of Winthrop ; .nnd to Mr. David T. V.ilcntine, for that of Steenwyek. 


















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